Question for Atheists: Is coming out as an atheist as hard as coming out as gay?

[TaraJo]

I've been reading the forums for a few days and I've come to appreciate that it is a very difficult thing for an atheist to "come out" to his or her Christian family?

Do you believe this "coming out" process to be as difficult and stressful as coming out as a homosexual?

And if so, how about this:

If you are both an atheist and homosexual, would it be better to "come out" to your parents on both issues at the same time to save on grief and surprise?

Having come out both as transgender and as atheist, I'd say coming out as trans is far more difficult. I have to imagine that's something completely different from coming out as gay, though, seeing as how my being trans isn't exactly something you can ignore.

I don't think I ever really officially came out as atheist, but back in the late 90's, when I was living with my parents, we had a shared computer and I was never especially good at clearing my browsing history, so they knew then. Dad tried to talk about it here and there and he was a little uncomfortable, but our household was still fairly secular and reasonable about religious matters.

As far as coming out as both at the same time, well, I didn't even really realize I was trans back then. I wish I had, though; it would have made a lot of things since then a whole lot easier.