Largest Survey on Nonreligious Americans Reveals Widespread Discrimination and Stigma, Including in New Jersey
Cranford, NJ—May 5, 2020—Today, the New Jersey-based civil rights organization American Atheists released Reality Check: Being Nonreligious in America, a comprehensive report drawn from the groundbreaking U.S. Secular Survey. Organized by a team of researchers and counting nearly 34,000 nonreligious participants, including 610 New Jerseyans, the U.S. Secular Survey is the largest ever data collection project on secular Americans and their experiences.
“At 75 million people, religiously unaffiliated Americans are as large a demographic as either Evangelical Christians or Catholics, and explicitly nonreligious people comprise a growing share of the population, yet before the U.S. Secular Survey there had been a lack of focused research on our community,” said Alison Gill, Vice President for Legal and Policy at American Atheists, who helped lead the project. “What we found shocked us. Discrimination and stigma against nonreligious Americans is widespread and extremely harmful, and it was the most intense in very religious communities.”
In states Mississippi and Utah, where roughly 8 in 10 participants called their community very religious, nonreligious people faced the most stigma. In New Jersey, however, less than 1 in 10 participants considered their community very religious, making the state the 6th least religious in the country. Similarly, New Jersey ranked 5th lowest for stigma against nonreligious people. Many New Jerseyans, nonetheless, do experience stigma and discrimination for being secular.
Sitav Nabi, who was born in Bangladesh and moved to the United States at age 5, grew up in Cedar Grove in Essex County. “My parents acted as though white and Christian people were more American and therefore better than me. As a result, they didn’t protect me from bullying, discrimination, and attempts to convert me to Christianity,” she said. “Being nonreligious has made me a stronger person. I had to learn to process what I was going through without any temporary coping mechanism.”
In 2019, Sitav founded a Secular Student Alliance chapter at Bergen Community College. “As the first secular club at Bergen, we created a platform for atheists and agnostics to really express how we feel, hold intelligent conversations, and eat cookies,” she said.
The Reality Check report found that involvement with organized secular community groups is an important protective factor that correlated with reduced likelihood of loneliness and depression. Members of national secular organizations, including American Atheists, were 34.8% less likely than non-members to be at risk for depression, while members of local secular groups were 29.3% less likely.
“Even in a pro-equality state like New Jersey, nonreligious people benefit greatly from involvement in our secular community,” said Lisa Ridge, president of the New Jersey Humanist Network, an American Atheists affiliate. “Our members enjoy working together on our social, educational, and political goals that help us lead happy and meaningful lives and promote tolerance in our diverse communities throughout the state. This report shows that we’ve made progress in New Jersey, but we still have work to do toward wider understanding and acceptance of nonreligious New Jerseyans.”
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If you have questions about Reality Check: Being Nonreligious in America or the U.S. Secular Survey, our team is happy to connect you to our experts, researchers, and nonreligious people across the country who have compelling, unique stories to tell.
If you’re a member of the media and would like to get in touch with us, please reach out to Tom Van Denburgh, American Atheists’ Communications Director, by emailing tvandenburgh@atheists.org or by calling (862) 221-6547.
About Us
The U.S. Secular Survey and Reality Check: Being Nonreligious in America are projects of American Atheists, a national civil rights group that represents the interests of atheists and nonreligious people in the United States. The survey and report were produced in collaboration with Strength in Numbers Consulting Group, a progressive research, evaluation, and strategy firm.