Out of the closet
A group of unjustly reviled Americans is coming out of the closet:
We are not so different than they are. We seek meaning in our lives too. We strive to be perceived as morally sound and ethically correct. They speak of our unnatural practices but we know they have scores of their own. They have tortured us throughout history because they believed our ideals and passions differed from theirs. We have constantly been branded as abominations and they have always supposed that we are against regularity and normalcy; defiant of the natural order intended for the world.
It isn’t who you might expect, though:
Because of the misperceptions we’re saddled with, it is extremely important that we fight this immense and repressive ignorance with honesty and pride. Life isn’t as easy as it should be when you’re an atheist, but you’re a better person for admitting it.
Stupid Evil Bastard’s guest writer Brock penned these words in “Thanks for Coming Out of the Closet” on Sunday. His piece reminded me of a previous use of the atheist/closet trope from Dave Silverman’s “Coming Out - Atheism: The Other Closet” at atheists.org:
We are writers and poets, philosophers and scientists, teachers and businesspeople, brain surgeons and truck drivers, architects and construction workers. We are men and women, black and white, republican and democrat, gay and straight, shy and outspoken. Since we are bound only by our disbelief, there are atheists with differing views on every political, economic, and social issue. I view this as a benefit which should serve as a model from which the rest of the world could learn. Atheists are united in diversity.We are moral, we are ethical, and we're tired of being defamed and maligned for our disbelief. Sound familiar?
Yes, as a matter of fact it does.