Being an openly atheist American politician is electoral poison

Evidence

On March 12, 2007, long-time congressman Pete Stark, Democrat from California, made history. He did not author a far-reaching legislation that created jobs, cleaned the air, or shaped foreign policy. He made American history by openly declaring that he does not believe in a God or gods. He thus became the first member of the US Congress to “come out” as an atheist. In 2012, Stark lost to fellow Democrat Eric Swalwell Jr., who publicly attacked Stark’s atheism. According to the Secular Coalition of America, in a country of more than 300 million, he has been the first, and possibly the only member of Congress who was on record as an atheist. The organization claims there are 26 other members ofCongress who are closet atheists or agnostics. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 228

Categorization

• XREF: Grounds the reader’s Big God thesis: if omniscient-god belief underwrites trust, then publicly denying God signals untrustworthiness to American voters. Connects to the novel’s apostasy dynamics and to Norenzayan’s broader claim that theism specifically (not just morality) is what earns trust.
• SHARE: The detail that only ~26 congressional atheists exist in hiding, or the ‘first and possibly only’ congressman on record, is narrow enough to send to someone studying secularism and political representation.