On the news the other night, there was a feature story about one of the local United Way chapters deciding to stop funding local Boy Scouts of America groups. The reason, of course, is because of the BSA's policy about not allowing homosexuals to be Scoutmasters.
There were, of course, the obligatory interviews with folks on both sides of the issue. On the one hand, you have those who are saying that the United Way is doing the right thing. Many people don't want their money going to a group that espouses such discrimination. And there are others that say the United Way is doing a bad thing, that the BSA has every right to have whatever policies they choose, since they're a private entity, blah blah blah...
But y'know, the thing that gets me is that I can't remember the last time I've heard any of the major media talk about the BSA's discrimination against atheists. Sure, I read about it all the time in some of my selected media outlets. The Freedom from Religion Foundation talks about it a lot in their publication, Freethought Today. My dear friend Margaret Downey, President of the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia (a chapter of FFRF) and head of the Anti-Discrimination Support Network speaks of it regularly in the pages of The Greater Philadelphia Story, FSGP's newsletter. But it's not mentioned in conjunction with the BSA's discrimination of gays on my TV news or in the papers.
Why is that?
You'd think that such a discriminatory practice would be big news, since atheists and homosexuals are probably in equal numbers in our country, and because religious discrimination is allegedly such a heinous thing here in the US of A. Maybe it's because being gay is much more socially acceptable than being an atheist. Or maybe it's just because it's fashionable to talk about gays and their sufferings, and the progress they're making in our society...whereas it's never been fashionable to talk positively about people who don't believe in God.
Don't get me wrong. I'm thrilled that people are protesting the BSA's prejudices against gays. It's fantastic. And I don't begrudge non-heterosexuals any of the positive things that are happening for them. I think it's great.
I'd just like to see a little bit of that public concern spread our way every once in a while.
