This is one of the points that Richard Dawkins makes in his book and it utterly amazes me. Living in a country where religion is a lot less prominent than it is in the US (and that unlike the US actually does have proper separation of Church and state) it is nearly impossible for me to even imagine how simply saying that you do not believe in god is that unconventional.
In a poll conducted in 1999, the outcome was that American voters were more likely to vote for a Jew, a woman, a black person and even a homosexual than they would be to vote for a person who publicly admitted to be an atheist.
So purely speaking in terms of emancipation (black people's rights, women's rights and gay rights) in today's American society, outspoken atheists appear to actually be behind the aforementioned groups in terms of being accepted. Absolutely staggering. Though it does immediately explain why so few people in America seem to speak up when Bush delivers a speech in which he claims to be doing things in the name of God. If you did that here in the Netherlands you should see the newspapers the next day. Which by the way is not to say that The Netherlands is a godless country by any means, the current parliament is made up of two Christian parties and our prime-minister is a Christian.
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