The latest faith group to launch a congressional caucus? The nonreligious.
A new religious group in the US House of Representatives is advocating for more representation and influence. Those members? The nonreligious.
This week, Democratic Reps. Jared Huffman (CA), Jamie Raskin (MD), Jerry McNerney (CA), and Dan Kildee (MI)announced the formation of a new caucus, known as the Congressional Freethought Caucus, to safeguard the interests of nontheists in government, and to promote policies based, in their view, on reason and science.
A press statement emailed to journalists said, “The mission of the caucus is to promote public policy based on reason and science, to protect the secular character of our government, and to champion the value of freedom of thought worldwide.”
According to the statement, the caucus will actively work to “protect the secular character of our government”; promote science-bred public policy; counter discrimination against atheists, agnostics, and humanists; and provide a “forum for Members of Congress to discuss their moral frameworks, ethical values, and personal religious journeys.”
The presence of the caucus reflects a wider trend in religion in America: the development of religious identities outside of formal categories of organized religion. While atheism itself is on the rise (7 percent of Americans identified as atheist in 2017, up from 4 percent in 2014), those whose religious identity is “unaffiliated” or less specifically defined comprise a far broader group. (That said, Vox’s Brian Resnick notes that atheists tend to under-self-report in polls.)