Secular Coalition for America

Secular Coalition for America
Formation2002; 22 years ago (2002)
TypeNon-profit organization
PurposeAdvocate for the nontheistic community in the United States and for secularism.
Location
Websitesecular.org

The Secular Coalition for America is an advocacy group located in Washington D.C. It describes itself as "protecting the equal rights of nonreligious Americans."[1]

The Secular Coalition has chapters in all 50 states and Puerto Rico, composed of lobbyists trained by the organization. The Coalition holds an annual lobby day and policy conference, publishes yearly Congressional report cards and voter guides, and in 2013 issued its first Model Secular Policy Guide for Legislatures.[2]

Coalition president Herb Silverman was a leading force behind the founding of the organization. Former White House staffer Edwina Rogers served as Executive Director from May 2012 to May 2014. Sean Faircloth, a five-term Maine state legislator, served as Executive Director between 2009 and 2011.[3] Between 2005 and 2009, it was directed by former Nevada state senator Lori Lipman Brown, who became its first full-time lobbyist in September 2005.[4][5][6]

The Secular Coalition works to increase visibility and respect for irreligious, nontheistic viewpoints in the United States and to protect and strengthen the secular character of the U.S. government. The Coalition advocates complete separation of church and state within American politics which they claim is clearly established in the U.S. Constitution under the First Amendment. Furthermore, the Coalition holds that freedom of conscience, which includes religious freedom, was of such importance that it was made the first of all freedoms protected in the Bill of Rights,[7] and that reason and science should be guiding tenets for public policy.

  1. ^ "Home".
  2. ^ Model Secular Policy Guide for Legislatures
  3. ^ Sean Faircloth Stepping Down as Executive Director
  4. ^ Non-believers raising voice in capital, article by Jill Lawrence, USA Today, September 18, 2005
  5. ^ Godless Pride, article by Art Levine, Mother Jones, December 2005
  6. ^ Atheists Challenge the Religious Right, article by Jane Lampman, Christian Science Monitor, January 4, 2007
  7. ^ Boston, Rob. Why the Religious Right Is Wrong About Separation of Church & State. Buffalo, N.Y., Prometheus Books (1993) ISBN 978-0-87975-834-9