Bigotry isn't just a matter of treating one group as inferior, but also of treating another group as superior. Anti-atheist bigotry can be expressed by telling atheists that they aren't moral enough for politics as well as by telling Christians or religious believers that they are needed in politics because the government has need of their moral values. Bigotry and privilege are two sides of the same coin whether the issue is race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or belief in gods.
Unapologetic bigots may publicly proclaim their bigotry by calling for some group to receive inferior treatment, but because America's values are supposed to include equality for all, such tactics don't work well if presented too blatantly. Bigots must therefore mask their bigotry by re-framing it as something else, preferably something consistent with traditional American values. As a consequence, anyone who opposes that bigotry can be branded as anti-American so that their objections can be ignored.
Victims Deserve What They're Getting
The most common means for concealing bigotry is to allege that the victims of discrimination deserve to be treated unjustly. If the targets of unjust bigotry can be successfully tarred with false accusations, the bigots won't be criticized. Since one of the principal goals of making false accusations is to have people harmed through unjust treatment, this can work out quite well for the bigots.
This tactic can readily get people to be suspicious and distrustful of the targeted group, but it's risky because it lays bare the bigotry a bit too openly. As soon as anyone realizes that those targeted by bigots don't really deserve the unjust treatment, the entire system of oppression begins to collapse. It's important, then, to ensure that people want to believe the worst of the target group and want members of that group to be harmed.
The more people want to be right about the targeted group being bad, the less likely they will take seriously evidence that there is nothing wrong with them. This means that people can be counted on to preserve their animus with little extra input from the more overt bigots.
Privilege as a Perk for Bigots
If any group in society is in any way discriminated against, disempowered, or oppressed, then some other group or groups will benefit. An uneven playing field is created where some are disadvantaged while others get special advantages — or privileges. Discriminating against women in workplace means men are have advantages when seeking employment or promotion. Discriminating against black political candidates means white candidates have an advantage.
Since bigotry and discrimination against one group means privileging another, it's possible to maintain or expand bigotry by promoting the privileges of some groups. The effects will be the same as promoting bigotry against some group directly, but the bigots won't appear to be promoting bigotry at all. Even better, once privileges are established long enough, they can be framed as the natural "rights" of the privileged group. Bigots who defend them can thus appear to be defenders of basic American values.
Christian Privilege as Anti-Atheist Bigotry
This is the situation we atheists find ourselves in: Christians who don't want to openly appear to be bigots regularly defend and promote privileges for themselves and religious believers generally which, necessarily, lead to disempowerment for and discrimination against secular nonbelievers. Many probably don't feel like bigots, having bought into their own rhetoric about needing to preserve a "right" to be privileged and as well as the lies about atheists which are designed to portray them as worthy of distrust, hated, and discrimination.
Christians don't need to officially bar atheists from public office because they have convinced enough voters that atheists can't be trusted and don't have the same values as they do. Christians don't need to say that atheists are unpatriotic or unAmerican because they have changed the text of the Pledge of Allegiance to indoctrinate kids into believing that good Americans must all believe in and submit to God. Christians don't need to officially discriminate against atheist organizations because they have written the laws that ensure religious organizations — which usually means Christian organizations — benefit from special legal, social, and tax privileges.
Fighting Unjust Privileges to Fight Bigotry
We can't effectively combat anti-atheist bigotry if we only focus on the most obvious, egregious, and direct examples of bigotry. We must look more deeply in society to better understand how injustice, discrimination, and hate have become part of accepted social structures which people take for granted. Ending oppression of any group means, necessarily, ending the privileges of some other group(s) whose members will fight tooth and nail to preserve what they now deem as their birthright — and all while denying that there is any bigotry involved. The fact that others suffer for the sake of their privileges is, at best, irrelevant to them.
Sometimes, though, attacking unjust privileges directly will be the best course of action despite the strong and self-righteous nature of the opposition. This applies not just to atheists, but to any group who experience bigotry and discrimination through the privileging of other groups. It's vital that atheists always remember that they are not alone in this and that many have suffered in the past and continue to suffer through the entrenchment of faith-based bigotry, hate, and discrimination in American society.
