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(NewsNation) — Before U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman “came out” as a secular humanist, those close to the California congressman said it would be disastrous to separate him from other members of Congress. He warned that there could be consequences.
However, DCA Huffman remains part of a tiny minority of American politicians who are not committed to any particular faith group.
in 118th According to a 2023 Pew Research poll, 88% of Congress identifies as Christian, while about 30% of Americans are characterized as “nonreligious.” Huffman and Arizona independent Rep. Kyrsten Sinema are the only ones who check for religious apathy or no belief, making up 0.2% of the 535-member legislative body.
Huffman said many candidates and legislators alike are hesitant to identify as non-Christians for fear of political backlash. That, he says, has made him the “one stupid” lawmaker he calls a “religious weirdo.”
“It really puts me in a league of my own,” Huffman told NewsNation.
believe it or not
Mr. Huffman was a devout Mormon and a member of the sect’s clergy.
But after checking off the humanist box, the Democrat said he was one of a quietly growing number of politicians uncomfortable with being forced into a religious box, with most members of Congress As a representative of Christians from multiple denominations, he said he felt this was his limit. .
New Jersey Sen. Andrew Zwicker went a step further.
Zwicker considers himself a “multigenerational atheist,” and jokes that he has visited more churches, temples, synagogues and other places of worship since being elected than ever before.
But his status as a nonbeliever and representative of a blue state has not come at the expense of what might have happened in more conservative parts of the country.
“It’s not a question of what I believe or don’t believe,” Zwicker told NewsNation. “More importantly, we are a nation of all faiths, with the freedom to have any faith or no faith at all.”
Huffman was initially concerned about how voters would react to what he jokingly called a “leap of faith.”
In a 2020 Gallup poll of voters, 40% said they would not vote for an atheist presidential candidate, one of the highest percentages of any category. It was done. Only “socialists” trailed behind, with 55% of voters saying they did not support it.
But in progressive districts, Huffman won 72% of the vote in the California primary in March. He will face Republican Chris Coulomb in November.
Is being a believer the same as trusting?
Azhar Majeed, head of government affairs at the research center, told NewsNation that politicians who identify as religious are decent people who do the right thing and choose to be classified as unbelievers. He said that choosing to do is often confused with choosing to do. I encountered some negative things.
“I think the question in many voters’ minds is, ‘Is this person someone I can trust?’ Is this person going to do the right thing and have my interests as a voter in mind?” Is this the person who will give it to you? ” Majeed said.
Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority had great influence in Washington in the 1970s. In the 1980s, one of President Ronald Reagan’s most important speeches was delivered in front of a religious broadcaster.
NewsNation political contributor George Will says that in 2024, issues of faith will change the course of politics.
Will, a self-confessed atheist and “I don’t care about that”, says one of the most important questions to ask is whether political candidates care about their potential voters. To tell.
“It seems to me that very few people would say that (the candidates) are not religious, and therefore ungodly, and therefore untrustworthy, unworthy, and unpleasant,” Will said. “I don’t think many people think like that anymore.”
But for many politicians, identifying as a Christian means “you’re offending fewer people and pleasing more people.”
The other 0.2 percent of Congress, Mr. Sinema, was a Mormon. However, since leaving her faith group, she does not consider herself an atheist. When she took her oath of office, she took her oath with a bound copy of the United States Constitution in her hand, not the Bible.
A spokesperson told CBS News that Sinema’s choice had more to do with her love for the Constitution than a defiant act of unbelief. Sinema’s office did not respond to NewsNation’s request for an interview.
A card-carrying humanist, Huffman technically considers himself an atheist.
Humanists believe in “goodness without God” and are grounded in science and rationality, Huffman said. They also fulfill their moral obligations as human beings to those around them and do not agree with encouraging punishment in the afterlife or hell.
Meanwhile, according to a website for American atheists, atheism is not a positive belief that there is no God, but a rejection of the claim that God exists.
Huffman agrees that there is still a clear bias associated with the term, which he calls an “incomplete label” that prioritizes what atheists don’t believe over what they stand for. ”
Experts say Zwicker is not ashamed of his atheism, but he is not leading the charge and is avoiding the trap that some conventional wisdom may suggest. He says he is avoiding it.
“That becomes a low-hanging fruit,” Majeed said. “I think it comes down to the offensive line where you open yourself up.”
population growth
In 2007, just 16% of Americans had no religious affiliation, while 78% considered themselves Christian, Pew reported.
By 2023, 28% will identify as religiously independent. Of that group, 17% were atheists, 20% were agnostic, and 63% said they believed in nothing in particular.
Shortly after coming out, Huffman co-founded the Congressional Freethought Caucus in 2017 with Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin. The group started with just four members and has now grown to 23 members, Huffman said.
Despite the group’s growth, Huffman says politicians tend to lag behind “what’s going on in the real world.”
As more Americans choose to lose their religion, Will and Majeed say they will eventually do the same because Congress is a government agency that is representative and broadly reflects the contours of the country. claim.
“Progress is slow and it’s not necessarily a one-to-one change,” Majeed said. “But with each successive generation, there will be a higher percentage of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated. I don’t think it’s going to go in a different direction anytime soon.”
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