# What's the highest US political office an atheist has been elected to?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-us-political-office-an-atheist-has-been-elected-to/217042>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 4, 2003, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-us-political-office-an-atheist-has-been-elected-to/217042 "2003-12-04T22:57:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-us-political-office-an-atheist-has-been-elected-to/217042/21 "2003-12-06T06:04:39Z")

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Culbert Olson was an atheist governor of California in the 1930s, but he made only veiled references to his disbelief publicly during his career. After he was retired, he came out of the closet.

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**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-us-political-office-an-atheist-has-been-elected-to/217042/22 "2003-12-06T06:30:45Z")

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Atheist: One who is skeptical about the existence of the supernatural.  
Agnostic: One who believes we cannot know anything about the existence of the supernatural.

**Krokodil** is simply wrong.

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**Author:** ![edwino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@edwino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwino)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-us-political-office-an-atheist-has-been-elected-to/217042/23 "2003-12-06T07:35:18Z")

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This seems pretty complete:  
[http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/franklin\_steiner/presidents.html#4.1](http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/franklin_steiner/presidents.html#4.1)

I’ll be damned (heh) if I’ll read the whole thing. No mention of atheist presidents, though. Washington, Lincoln and Grant seem to come closest.

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**Author:** ![Interrobang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/interrobang/32/17463_2.png) [@Interrobang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Interrobang)\
**Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-us-political-office-an-atheist-has-been-elected-to/217042/24 "2003-12-08T22:41:10Z")

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Edward Tabash is an atheist who ran for the California state legislature in 2000 and came in second. And he wasn’t open about his atheism during the campaign. [In a 2001 speech](http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=122), he claimed:

> [@](#):
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> NO KNOWN ATHEIST CURRENTLY HOLDS ANY MAJOR POLITICAL OFFICE IN THE UNITED STATES.

And he also says that

> [@](#):
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> In 2000, I was the only known Atheist to be a major contender for a state legislative seat in the United States.

And

> [@](#):
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> Atheists are the only holders of a viewpoint on matters of religion who cannot point to anyone, serving in either Congress or in any state legislature, and claim such an individual as one of our own.

I don’t know how great Tabash’s sources were, but I’d guess he wanted to find some role models. So I’m guessing that the answer to my question is going to be a pretty low office indeed – county council? small-town mayor? dog catcher? It may just be unanswerable.

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