Why do religious people desperately want to class Atheism as a religion?

[TheMonster]

I believe atheist/irreligious is becoming a "protected" class, just as much as any religion. Is that right? Has it happened already? (In the US, I mean.)

In word yes, in practice no. The First Amendment and oath of office should be enough by themselves to protect atheists. But even then, if you have no recording or documentation of discrimination, say about housing or a job, especially in "right to work states" they can fire you for anything and it would be hard to prove.

Say for example, you come out as gay, or come out as atheist, your landlord can lie and say it was about breach of contract, or if they are a real estate agent, they can simply say "this house is not for you". Or if you are on the job, and you come in with your uniform slightly out of place, but fixable on the spot, they could use that to fire you and you would never be able to prove the real reason was your label.

We are protected in the context that we are legal be it born or naturalized and especially with no criminal record. But humans lie about everything and their are very easy ways to avoid getting caught when you are a bigot. But that isn't just about atheists, that is about any minority label.

Yes you are absolutely right. It is impossible to prove discrimination, in the work place and especially in situations like when buying a house.
And it does not even have to be a minority label.

My friends and I were once waiting for a realtor to show us a house to rent. Now, we knew the realtor is not registered, which should have raised concerns, but it did not. We waited at the entrance of the house for a few minutes, only to find a car as described by the realtor drive near there and take off almost immediately. My suspicion is that he saw my friends and I (the 4 of us who are obviously not white and look "weird and dangerous") decided to take off without talking to us.

He was never heard from again. He did not pick up any of our calls, and would hang up when we called him from a different line and inquired about the incident. The joke is really on him. We were grad school buddies, with obviously no past history of any wrong doing (if anything we all did the right things and worked hard to get into grad school).

But in a court of law, it would be impossible to prove that his racist views "denied" us that house. I am saying that because we were the only prospective tenants who inquired him about the house in the last month (i checked). He could just say that an emergency came up and pull out an easy alibi right out of his arse.