Simple Rebuttals to Common Myths About Atheists

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7. American atheists have to constantly rebut this myth...

"A US Supreme Court decision declared atheism/secular humanism a religion!1!"

Here in South Catatonia, where I live now, every time the FFRF challenges a local Dollar Store Ayatollah, some clown will show up with a package of material making that claim. And also claiming that local govt. can trample the rights of any non-Xian, because of the Court decision putting atheism and religion on an equal footing.

This is all based on a (probably deliberate) garbling and misreading of a FOOTNOTE to the 1961 Supreme Court case Torcaso v. Watkins. The case dealt with a lawsuit over Maryland's law banning atheists from being Notary Publics.

Justice Hugo Black wrote a footnote to the decision discussing tax exemptions for non-religious organizations. The footnote was not part of the Supreme Court decision, and was just "obiter dicta" - Black's personal opinion.

In a 1994 case, Peloza v. Capistrano Unified School District, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals explicitly denied that the Torcaso footnote constituted a legal finding that atheism or secular humanism is a religion. (Peloza never got to the Supreme Court.) But as the old saying goes, a lie can travel around the world before the truth can get its shoes on.

And we're still stuck with explaining this over and over and over...