New Member, and a strong Atheist.

[Beam Reach]

I would be described as a strong or militant Atheist.

Militant Atheist you say?...

My goals are to work to main stream the Atheist view, while helping develop an Atheist political voice.

It's not your place to speak for "atheists" - The only necessity arising from the label is non-belief, attaching any ideals to a label in a political sense is really going to have a good chance of pissing many people off. If you're a secular humanist run under that banner, if not then invent something else, but for fucks sake don't try and speak for everyone who is an Atheist.

The chances of you matching my political ideologies for instance is pretty slim, so if you attach political meaning to atheism in a way that enforces that relationship in the minds of others all you have done is rape the word atheist of it's intended meaning and fuck things up for us atheists who have to now make a distinction between our atheism and yours.

So please, whatever the fuck you do, do not speak for anyone but yourself and those who are happy to take up the label that specifically represents your political ideology.

My political view is coming from the values I have as and Atheist, those also mesh with Humanist values, as I am also a Humanist. I view the attitude you express in your post as one of the problems which have resulted in the view of Atheist as second class citizens in the US. If you like hiding in your values, and not speaking out that is fine, but don’t think the other Atheist will continue to be unheard. The movement to take our position in society has started and it make no difference if it is call us Humanist, or Atheist; regardless of some Atheist’s desire to be reclusive it will continue. I respect you option to not work for equality, but I also expect your recognize my right to be a political Atheist pushing for the Atheist’s rightful position in society.