As some of you may have heard, Representative Stark of California's 13th District recently announced that he does not believe in god. It is believed by many that it would be political suicide for a politician to reveal his atheism, but current events have shown otherwise.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Rep. Stark has received a positive response to his revealed atheism. The article says that even for all of the negative responses, they "were the most reasoned and reasonable I've ever received," said Rep. Stark.
Representative Stark is the first high-ranking politician to announce his atheism. The second was a former school board member of Berkely. Now that is quite a gap. It seems that we will have to wait a while until other politicians gain the strength to announce their personal beliefs, but this gives great hope to atheists and nonreligious folk everywhere.
Atheists are currently the least trusted minority in America. They are less trusted than Muslims, immigrants, and homosexuals. This is probably caused by the belief that atheists don't have any morals. This is why it has been hard for atheists to get into politics.
Of course, the belief that atheists lack morals is false. Atheists can have just as high moral standards as any religious person out there. The acceptance of Rep. Stark's atheism shows that many people are starting to believe that fact.
Hopefully, we'll see more atheists "come out of the closet" just as homosexuals progressively have in the past decade. It will be a better world when people can be more honest and open with their views. Even if it creates polarization, at least we will deal with the confrontation now rather than sometime far away in the future.
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