Atheist Challenged Recycling Program

Why would an atheist challenge a recycling program? Perhaps because it served, even if inadvertently, to favor Christians. That's what happened in Chicago when the city offered "blue bags" for people who brought in Christmas trees for the wood chipper.

Glenn Jeffers for The Chicago Tribune:

According to [Rob Sherman, a local activist and an atheist], the city's trees-for-bags swap is unfairly beneficial to Christians. "The concern was that the city had constructed a well-intentioned program, but the effect was that only Christians had the opportunity to participate," Sherman said. "Christians had the opportunity to receive the blue bags for free. Atheists and others would have had to pay."

The city will now offer blue bags to anyone who visits one of 22 tree-recycling locations on Jan. 8 and brings a large bag of recyclable material, streets and sanitation spokesman Matt Smith said. "We'd prefer the tree, but we're willing to permit that. We've always been flexible," Smith said. "The main thing is that we want people to recycle, and we want to keep these trees out of the waste stream."

Like Sherman, Nancy Goodman of Rogers Park, who is Jewish, is pleased with the city's policy change. A longtime participant in Chicago's blue bag recycling program, Goodman, 68, was upset over not being able to take advantage of the swap.

But you don't necessarily have to be a Christian to own a Christmas tree, said Fred Kniss, a professor at Loyola University who studies sociology of religion. ... "Predominantly, it's a Christian holiday, but there are a lot of secular people who buy Christmas trees and use Christmas trees in their holiday celebrations," Kniss said.

Kniss is quite right, of course, but the experience of Nancy Goodman demonstrates that he misses the point: even though non-Christians may have Christmas trees, the program favored Christians. Local Hindus, Jews, atheists, and others are far less likely to have Christmas trees and were therefore automatically disqualified from participating in the program (as it was originally designed).

The state shouldn't do things that favor one religion, even if inadvertently. This sort of thing used to be more common when some sort of generic Christianity was assumed to be the default religious position of everyone, but as society becomes more religiously diverse governments will have to take greater care in what they do.

Read More:

• Separation of Church and State 101
• Church and State News
• Secularism 101