The paramount reason I became more and more vocal, adamant and militant about my personal atheism is because religious people around me turned up the volume on THEIR religious "broadcast".

There was no escape, family, and oddly, even strangers felt comfortable sending me email after email railing about the need for prayer in our schools, supporting more war, bashing gays and immigrants, attacking same-sex marriage and homosexuality, even though many of them knew my son is gay!

Apparently emboldened and empowered by their ministers, and without so much as a second thought or backwards glance, they'd copy these hateful email to me and everyone else in their address books, and amazingly hit "send" without once thinking about the message of fear, hate and bigotry they were spreading. At first, I kept hitting delete, but I found they took my silence as agreement. I then tried short "witty" responses like; "that was awful" or "not so much" ... but they kept coming anyway.

I was assaulted daily with blatant hypocrisy, extreme judgmental-ism and unashamed condemnation for anyone with a different color, religion, gender, sexual preference, political slant and anyone else deemed "different" by the "flock". The amount of sanctimonious nitwitery that surrounded me became overwhelming and unbearable!

Finally, something inside me clicked, silence was not an option any longer. I saw they were going after text books, attempting to elect and affect legislation, refuse a woman's right to choose, deny and condemn same sex marriage, deny civil liberties and thwart stem cell research!

So, I was kicked out of the atheist closet by religious fanatics and the insistence their beliefs should become the law of MY land! You can bet by the time my atheist closet door opened, I resembled a shaken and pissed off rattle snake! I came roaring out, I was loud and vehement.
I struck at all things religion and I offered NO apologies! Friends and family dropped off my FB page like leaves in autumn.

Would it have been more effective or caused me less personal "damage" if I came out softly and non-confrontational? Maybe. I think I felt worse about all the time I spent playing along and by not challenging them sooner. I wanted to avoid upsetting the proverbial apple cart.

In the end, I found the stakes were just too high to ignore... life and death, liberty and freedom. Speaking out against civil rights infringement is my duty as a human being and as a proud American.

Looking back, I only regret remaining silent as long as I did. I hope more people get kicked out of their atheist closet and speak up. I hope people stop to think about the hate they spread using religion as their weapon to discriminate, hate, vilify and denigrate. I hope they recognize the connection between the mindless email and the fanatic using religion to justify murder based solely on religious dogma. It's a short step.

While coming out loud and in-your-face is indeed very jarring and unsettling for everyone, I think it's an appropriate reaction and response to bigotry, hatred, prejudice and hypocrisy. If our founding father's would have "come out softly" we'd still be a British colony.

I suppose it's a good thing the extreme fundamentalists have become comfortable enough that they've now exposed their hatred and bigotry for all the world to see. No longer can decent men and woman look the other way and pretend it's harmless. You've got to ALL come out and challenge them!