PRESS RELEASE
Nov. 15, 2006

Contact: Atheists United Office: 323-666-4258;
Stuart Bechman, Co-President: 805-405-3929

WASHINGTON, DC - The National Council of Atheists - composed of many of the nation's most prominent leaders of the national atheist movement - adopted new guidelines for gay outreach on Wednesday that contrasted sharply with the guidelines released by the National Council of Catholic Bishops only one day earlier.

The statement, "Recognition of Rights of All Humanity Regardless of Sexual Orientation," was adopted within only a few hours of convening with a unanimous vote of all participants. This was in contrast to the days spent by the NCCB to put forth a severely convoluted and contradictory set of guidelines for which a full 20% of participants failed to support.

The NCA statement reads: "The atheist community recognizes that sexual orientation is a natural part of humanity and, thus, consists of a 'natural law' developed from our evolutionary history. We assert that every person deserves all the rights and opportunities promised to all people through acclaimed and accepted guidelines of decency such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, regardless of their sexual orientation; and we find immoral any attempt to deny some or all of those rights to anyone based on that sexual orientation.

"We find that there is nothing innately dangerous to our society or our institutions for people to be gay, excepting for those who would want to use those institutions to forward their own intolerant and anti-human agendas. We find the promotion of ideas such as 'it's OK for gay people to be attracted to people of the same sex but wrong for them to participate in consensual adult relationships with those same people' to be cruel, inhumane, and immoral in and of itself.

"We recognize that concepts such as 'gay subculture' are perverted attempts to mark gay people as somehow less than human and thus easy targets for discrimination. We believe in the importance of living a life with honor and integrity and denounce those who would attempt to keep any group of people silent about who and what they are. Finally, we recognize that sexual orientation is not a choice but an innate organic part of a person's psyche; and we oppose efforts to promote programs that claim to "re-educate" or offer "therapy" to change a person's orientation.

"Indeed, the whole idea of having special guidelines for one group of people in our society based on their sexual orientation is nothing short of repugnant to us; and we offer such guidelines not to segregate those groups, but to call for their full and integrated inclusion in our larger society.

"We call on all people, including political and religious leaders, to affirm the diversity of humanity, including its sexual orientations, and to oppose those individuals and organizations who would seek to mark subgroups within our communities as deficient, unworthy, or sinful merely for being who they are."

One council representative commented, "This was a no-brainer, one of the easiest declarations we've ever made. How anyone claiming to uphold moral standards in our society could argue that gays aren't real people is a huge mystery to me." Councilmembers urged all atheist communities to affirm their commitment to these guidelines and to honor and welcome all people interested in a life based on reason and naturalism, regardless of their sexual orientation.

Atheists United is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization based in Los Angeles and dedicated to the promotion of an ethical life based on reason, knowledge, and science; the separation of government and religion; and the protection of rights for the atheist community.

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