Tennessee County Backs Down on Privileging Christians

Wilson County, Tennessee thinks that it's a good idea to hold a fair in which belief in the Christian god is promoted, thus effectively making it a doctrine of faith expected of all citizens. This continues to be done implicitly by calling it "God & Country Day" and had been done explicitly by giving Christians a special Christians-only discount for bringing church bulletins with them.
This latter bit of pro-Christian discrimination was nixed after atheists complained, pointing out that such blatant religious favoritism is unconstitutional and immoral. Officials are unapologetic, though, as demonstrated by their insistence on continuing to use the fair to promote their private religious dogmas.

To resolve the controversy, fair organizers decided to offer a $2 discount to any fairgoer who presents a bulletin from a church or other religious service, or a printout from a religious or secular group's Web page. General admission is normally $7 for adults and $5 for kids, ages 6-12.

Wilson County Promotions board member Cheryl Lewis, who organized the God & Country Day, disputes any claims of discrimination. She said the event was first held in 2002, in response to the Sept. 11 attacks, and has received broad community support. "I'm not naive enough to think that every person in Wilson County believes there is a God," Lewis said. But she added that faith is a vital part of life in Wilson County, and for Tennesseans in general.

Source: Tennessean

Cheryl Lewis doesn't think that there is discrimination involved in giving discounts to Christians that are (at best) difficult for non-Christians to obtain? What if the discount required bringing in a bulletin from a Protestant church, or from a predominantly white church, would that still not qualify as discrimination in Cheryl Lewis' eyes? It's all discrimination of course, but seeing it requires recognizing that it's an unfair and unjust privileging of one group over others.

Most people recognize that it's wrong to give special privileges to Protestants or whites, but not everyone recognizes that it's wrong to give special privileges to Christians. Cheryl Lewis exemplifies the bigotry of non-conscious ideologies when she defends the privileging of Christians by saying that "faith is a vital part of life" there. She acknowledges that there are people who don't have any faith in any gods and people who have faith in different gods, but rather than treat them as full equals she thinks that the importance Christians' faith somehow justifies treating them as special.

Local atheists aren't stopping at just getting county officials to pull back from their discrimination. They will be attending the fair in order to keep getting the word out that atheists exist in Wilson County, that they must be accepted as equals, and that they won't meekly submit to discrimination or bigotry in the future:

Blair Scott, national alliance outreach director for American Atheists, plans on attending God & Country Day. Several Alabama atheist groups plan to join Nashville atheists at the fair. Scott is pleased that atheists will get the same discount as churchgoers, but he thinks the fair's mix of patriotism and faith is misguided.

"We think they should get rid of the God & Country name — it lends credence to the perception of discrimination," Scott said. "Whether they are trying to discriminate or not, perception is everything." Scott, who served 10 years in the Navy, said that atheist soldiers can feel left out when God and patriotism get mixed. "We get so tired of the canard that there are no atheists in foxholes," he said. "I love my country just as much as any God-fearing citizen."

[Thaddeus Schwartz, founder of Secular Life, a Nashville atheist group] says he and other atheists will wear T-shirts and pass out fliers but won't be waving protest signs on Sunday. Instead, he said, they want to focus on supporting those who serve in the military. Schwartz believes that in Nashville and other parts of the Bible Belt, atheists get overlooked.

This sort of activism can be very important and helpful. Non-conscious ideologies survive by hiding in the shadows and not being noticed. As soon as they are revealed as ideologies rather than "nature" or "the way things have to be," they can be openly critiqued, modified, and even eliminated. What this means is that drawing attention to them is the first and often most effective tactic for combatting them.

When a non-conscious ideology involves the unjust privileging of one group over others, drawing attention to it means that outsiders must be vocal and unapologetic about their existence, about their demands for equality, and about their refusal to simply accept dhimmitude as if it were an inherent part of some unalterable natural order. This is one reason why atheists who very open and unapologetic can be attacked as "militant" and "intolerant" — even if on an unconscious level, people recognize that atheists are challenging some of the foundations of very identities.

Unfortunately, those foundations are derived from an assumption that one is superior and deserving of unjust privileges. It was traumatic for many whites to get over White Supremacism and learn to treat blacks and other racial minorities as equals. It's been traumatic for men to get over Male Supremacism and learn to treat women as fully equal. It will continue to be traumatic for many religious theists — and some Christians in particular — to get over their own feelings of superiority and learn that they, their beliefs, and their religious institutions don't deserve any political, social, or cultural privileges.