AMERlCAN ATHEISTS, INC.
FOR lMMEDlATE RELEASE
August 11, 2000

http://www.atheists.org
http://www.americanatheist.org

                       AMERlCAN ATHElSTS TO POLS:
           "STOP THE WHlNlNG AND GET BACK TO THE ISSUES"

  "Can we PLEASE have an end to the moral posturing, sermonizing and acts of
public humiliation and kneebending and get on with the real issues?" asked
American Atheists President Ellen Johnson today.
In the past 24-48 hours:
  * Democrats have caved in to the inquisitorial thuggery of the Catholic
League by trying to cancel a fund raiser at the Playboy Mansion.
  * President Clinton has again shamelessly groveled before a meeting of
evangelicals, and felt compelled to "apologize" for personal deeds and
misdeeds which are no one's business but his own.
  * Republicans and Democrats are trading charges over George Bush's public
Christianity versus Joe Lieberman's public Orthodoxy -- a point raised today
in today's Wall Street Journal by self-appointed culture guru Michael
Medved.
  "The repulsive use of religious creeds, slogans and doctrines as campaign
stickers is reaching a fever pitch," said Ellen Johnson. "All of these
candidates are citing their religious beliefs as if they are legitimate
credentials for public office, even if it means 'buying' religious votes by
promising to institute vouchers, and put sectarian groups on the welfare
rolls through 'charitable choice' schemes and expensive 'faith-based'
partnerships, noted Ms. Johnson.
  She specifically cited GOP Vice Presidential hopeful Dick Cheney's
visit to a St. Louis rescue mission. "They openly preach religious
submission there as part of their social outreach, and Cheney wants them to
receive federal subsidies." It's their religion, and Cheney would use our
money - and we say,'No way!"
  "lt is a disgrace that in this election, neither party and neither slate of
candidates are saying anything about how they will uphold the constitutional
separation of church and state or deal with real problems in the real
world," Ms. Johnson said.
  Ron Barrier, National Spokesperson for American Atheists added, "All they
can think about is turning their election campaigns into traveling religious
road shows, finding new ways of violating the First Amendment and putting
supernaturalism on the public dole.
  "The current campaign is ignoring the concerns of tens of millions of
Atheists, freethinkers and others who are decent people but lend no credence
to the concept of the existence of benign invisible beings from beyond
space."

For more information, please contact:
Ellen Johnson, President      (973) 334-5110
Ron Barrier, Nat'l. Spokesman (718) 967-6453

      American Atheists, Inc. P.O. Box 5733 Parsippany, NJ 07054-6733
               Tel: (908) 276-7300   Fax:(908) 276-7402