An apparently legitimate fear–there are people who think that way–mitigated by the fact that of the seven Day Care operators and their staffs that I have known, (including the operator and staff of the center that my children attended for ten years), I could tell you the religious beliefs of exactly one person–a staff worker who happened to worship at my parish. I even got to be pretty good friends with the operator of my kids’ center and I still have no idea whether or not she even believes in a god.
I doubt that anyone would actually have known that you were non-believers if you made no effort to tell them (unless you lived in a very tiny Southern town).
I do not think he should have to hide his lack of belief and I am sure that if his lack of belief were known, he would (in several places in the U.S.) actually suffer for it.
OTOH, among all the day care operators and workers I have known, the subject has never come up, so we are back to how anyone would actually learn about the unbelief of a day care operator.
Heck, at places I have been employed, I have never known the religious (un)beliefs of co-workers unless they happened to take off a couple days in September about a week apart or shown up the day after Mardi Gras with smudged foreheads. After I had been at a site for several years, I might have come to know the various religions of some co-workers based on the churches at which they or their kids got married or if I met them at church, but it is just not a common bit of knowledge. I have lived in my house for over twenty years and the only neighbors whose religions I know are those who attend my church or those who have had relatives buried or married in a church that I attended.
The common denominator in these stories is you, so I think it could be argued that the reason you didn’t know might have been that you didn’t pursue it, where someone else might have known because they did.
I did specifically mention the more wacky places in my post. I’m not suggesting that athiests are uniformly discriminated against nationwide. I’m just pointing out that I wouldn’t be all that surprised to learn that in some places in the U.S., athiests would have adopted children taken away from them (or be discriminated against as to adopting children in the first place). Would it really be that surprising to you?
Useful in persuading others of your opinion, yes. Useful in finding the most accurate opinion, no. I think we just approached that from different perspectives (as we did your initial comment I replied to).
It depends on who was doing the adoption placement. If the state was, say through the foster care program, then I would be very surprised if an atheist was discriminated against…religion should in no way be a deciding criteria by the state.
On the other hand, if it was an adoption through a private agency or otherwise privately arranged, I would expect potential adoptive parents to be discriminated against for all kinds of reasons, religion or lack or religion being primary among them. It should be left to the discretion of the birth parents to choose the parents they want their child raised by, and religion is certainly a legitimate factor to consider.
Yes, very much so. And it would be a media-frenzy court case. Atheists may not be a protected class, but as individuals they are rights bearing entities. And as Americans, they have the protection of the US Constitution.