Thousands of nonbelievers converged on the Mall yesterday to demand
equal rights under the Constitution and separation between politics and the
pulpit during the first-ever Godless Americans March on Washington.
The roughly 2,000 demonstrators from around the nation -- self-proclaimed atheists, agnostics, freethinkers and secular humanists -- toted cardboard signs that read, "One Nation Under the Constitution,"
"Religion Kills" and "God is a Fairytale." Fewer than a dozen
counter-demonstrators standing nearby taunted them by reading Scripture
through a bullhorn.
The nonbelievers marched on the National Mall from 14th Street to the
Capitol, where more than 20 speakers addressed the audience from a stage for
almost four hours on a sunny but chilly day.
"This is a class in Activism 101. ... We Godless Americans are
everywhere. Nonbelievers comprise 14 percent of the population. ... We are
your husbands and friends. ... We work for corporations, and we, too, served
in the recovery after 9/11," said Ellen Johnson, president of American
Atheists, the Cranford, N.J., group that organized the march.
"We still need to keep marching and protesting," Ms. Johnson told the
crowd. "I'm asking you today ... to work with Godless Americans Political
Action Committee. Some of you came thousands of miles to be here. You care
about the separation of church and state," she said. She encouraged the
group to become more politically active.
"We are on the move to becoming a well-oiled machine who knows how to
play the game," Ms. Johnson said.
The speakers included Michael Newdow, the West Coast physician whose
lawsuit led a San Francisco federal appeals court to rule in June that
"under God" be stricken from the Pledge of Allegiance - a ruling widely
expected to be reversed on appeal.
Dr. Newdow, 49, was roundly applauded when he appeared on stage. To a
howl of laughter, he joked that he had to pray to a higher power to find a
parking space near the Mall.
Demonstrators who were not near the stage watched the speeches on a
large screen. Some had a fall picnic. Alice Mitchell, 27, of Gloversville,
N.Y., relaxed on her red blanket and said she's always been a freethinker
and is a lifelong atheist.
"There was no evidence, no proof of God. Every time I asked, they would
say, 'It's felt in the heart'. It's pretty evident that it was made up," she
said.
Jerry Fennell, 31, from Denver, Pa., who said he was raised Roman
Catholic, was among the counter-demonstrators. He held up a sign that read,
"Prepare to meet thy God."
"It's interesting," Mr. Fennell said. "At some point I feel really bad
for these people, and at other times their open blasphemy makes me cringe."
