While my own petition to acknowledge the civil rights of atheists went down in defeat with only seventy signatures, another petition, one urging the government to create a Death Star (a la Star Wars) rocketed to the required twenty-five thousand.
The government responded to the petition, estimating the cost of such a weapon at $850 quadrillion, the administration is not interested in destroying planets, that it is not interested in creating a weapon that has a fundamental flaw that can cause its destruction by a single pilot in a fighter, and it is looking to reduce the deficit not expand it.
The petition may be found at the White House petition site here. My petition cannot be found, it was removed when it failed to garner the required number of signatures.
The White House response is cute, and offers instead what can be and is being done today.
And that is why atheists are not treated equally in society. - James.
I agree - Atheists are certainly not treated equally in our society.
I would hope that you would try again with your petition when you feel the time is right.
I think we could garner more attention to the issue.
It's more than that, though. It's why the case for American exceptionalism is such a joke. If we are exceptional in anything, it's making ourselves look like idiots.
Go get PZ to support the petition. You'll get your thousands of signatures, then.
"American Exceptionalism" is a religious idea, not a secular one. It is based in the Congregational Church (the Puritans). From Wikipedia that font of all human ken (citation needed):https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism#Puritan_roots
Parts of American exceptionalism can be traced to American Puritan roots. Many Puritans with Arminian leanings embraced a middle ground between strict Calvinist predestination and a less restricting theology of Divine Providence. They believed God had made a covenant with their people and had chosen them to lead the other nations of the Earth. One Puritan leader, John Winthrop, metaphorically expressed this idea as a "City upon a Hill"—that the Puritan community of New England should serve as a model community for the rest of the world. This metaphor is often used by proponents of exceptionalism. The Puritans' deep moralistic values remained part of the national identity of the United States for centuries, remaining influential to the present day.