For Immediate Release
Contact: Lori Lipman Brown, (202) 299-1091
Jan. 30, 2007
Noted journalist Christopher Hitchens joins the advisory board of the Secular Coalition for America
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Secular Coalition for America is pleased to announce the addition of Christopher Hitchens to its Advisory Board. Hitchens adds his intellectual firepower to that of scientist, Richard Dawkins; author, Wendy Kaminer; lawyer, Michael Newdow; intellectual, Stephen Pinker; and entertainer, Julia Sweeney on the Advisory Board of the Secular Coalition for America, an organization lobbying for the rights of atheists, humanists, freethinkers, and other nontheists in the nation's capitol.
Hitchens is a well known author, journalist and literary critic. He is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, provides a monthly essay on books for The Atlantic Monthly and has written for The Nation, Wall Street Journal, The London Review of Books, Granta, Harper's, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, New Left Review, Slate, The New York Review of Books, Newsweek International, The Times Literary Supplement, and The Washington Post. A regular television and radio commentator, Hitchens has also published more than a dozen books including the forthcoming God is Not Great: The Case Against Religion (Warner Twelve), which posits that organized religion does more harm than good, and explains how society would benefit if faith remained personal rather than public.
Although his political ideas and positions may have changed through his career, he has steadfastly remained a believer in the Enlightenment values of secularism, humanism and reason. Today Hitchens is focused on protecting our secular democracy against efforts -- both foreign and domestic -- to impose what he calls "theocratic fascism."
Lori Lipman Brown, the Director of the Secular Coalition for America, stated that the new Congress has taken an important step in promoting reason and secular values when the House voted to expand stem cell research. However, there are many more policies enacted by the previous Republican-controlled Congress, under pressure from the religious right, which have corrupted our secular government and need to be repealed. These include: vouchers for religious schools in the District of Columbia, the funneling of federal tax dollars to churches through the president's faith-based initiatives, and privileging certain religious sects over the rest of society in zoning and prison policies through the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). The Secular Coalition for America again thanks Mr. Hitchens for joining its Advisory Board and looks forward to his assistance in removing these and other theocratic intrusions from our secular democracy.
The mission of the Secular Coalition for America is to increase the visibility and respectability of nontheistic viewpoints in the United States and to protect and strengthen the secular character of our government as the best guarantee of freedom for all.