There was a buzz in the air as, over their banquet dinner, the audience watched the video on a screen in the front of the ballroom. No one in the room had seen anything quite like this before. Eyes sparkled and attention was sharply focused. Boisterous applause erupted at the opening of video, in which a suited man of resolute countenance, the American flag as his backdrop – addressed the audience.

“I’m Congressman Pete Stark, and I represent California’s 13th congressional district, located at San Francisco’s East Bay. And, as far as I know, I represent most of the non-theists around the world.”

It was the 66th Annual Conference of the American Humanist Association, held in June of this year in Portland, Oregon, and the audience was watching the welcome address delivered by the first-ever openly non-theistic member of Congress, Fortney “Pete” Stark. Not a minor event, considering that in the United States, for candidates running for public office, admitting you don’t believe in God can mean the proverbial kiss of death: fewer than 50 per cent of people said they would vote for an atheist for president, even if that candidate was well-qualified and from their own political party.

“I’m not particularly interested…in whether religion is a force for good or bad,” Stark continued. “I’m more interested in having religion not be a force for any governmental policy at all…Unfortunately, many people are working overtime to have our Government impose their particular religious beliefs on others. They want to forbid civil unions between gay couples. They want to encourage – indeed, in some cases require – prayer in public schools and in the military. And they want to allow Government-funded social service organizations to discriminate in their hiring policies. None of this should be happening.”

But it is happening – and it’s been happening for a long time.

Rep. Stark’s speech at the American Humanist Association conference highlights the struggle Humanists face in America today: to keep religion out of government so that individuals can live their lives without having someone else’s personal and subjective beliefs foisted upon them. Thomas Jefferson’s wall between church and state is vital if we are to protect the right for Humanists to live their lives as they please – without God.

Of course, this struggle not only benefits Humanists and other non-theists, but people of all religious beliefs as well. Most Humanists would agree that, though they aren’t religious themselves, religion can be a source of great personal solace and strength for many people. And the best way – indeed the only way – to protect the right of the people to their religion is to keep politics far away from it: just as the state can flourish when it’s unadulterated by religion, so does religion flourish when unadulterated by the state.

However, what we’re seeing in America today are two increasingly vocal and polarizing crowds – one that wishes to push their religion on others through infiltration into government and society, and another that sees all manifestations of religion as a threat and wishes to do away with it all together.

The first camp represents a “third awakening” of sorts that has taken place across America: a renewed religious devotion that is likely an effect of the fear of terrorism that has gripped society in the States. Increasingly we hear from the Rush Limbaughs, James Dobsons, and various other pundits on Fox News about the “War on Christians,” and a call to reclaim America as a Christian nation. Intelligent Design, the claim that certain features of the universe can best be explained by an intelligent cause (or, in other words, theology in sheep’s clothing), is being pushed as an equal alternative to evolution in science classes in our public schools. Pharmacists are arguing that they have the right to refuse to sell women Plan B, the morning-after emergency contraceptive pill, because use of the pill violates their religious belief. All pointing to the overwhelming sense that religious needs are currently taking priority over secular needs in American society today.

Of course, it doesn’t help that the second camp – a small group of vocal writers and pundits – actually have launched a war (if in name only) on Christians, and for that matter, religion in general. Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, Daniel Dennett, author of Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, and most recently Christopher Hitchens, author of God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, are all members of this “New Atheism,” as it’s been dubbed by the press. Particularly in Harris’s and Hitchens’s case, this new brand of atheism is particularly hostile to religion, arguing that religion is unnecessary and dangerous and should be done away with entirely.

This polarized battle between two fronts – one religious, one non-theist – obscures the real battle that we should all be fighting. What neither side seems to realize is that both of their interests are served by a rigid separation of church and state: it guarantees one side the right to practice their religion as they see fit and the other side to be protected against religion’s intrusion into their lives. And it’s important for this message to click soon: religion has managed to lock a stranglehold on the political debate, and wields a tremendous amount of clout in Washington today. From the Executive to the Legislative Branch, policy initiatives and projects are being funneled through the system that erodes the separation of church and state.

For example, Bush’s pet project, the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, was created to purportedly “level the playing field” when it came to the awarding of grants to social service organizations, but in fact ended up giving preference to Christian – especially Christian Evangelical – groups. Congress has been no better – writing bills that would allow military chaplains to proselytize unwilling soldiers, that would make it harder for legal groups to challenge the government when it violates the ban on the government establishment of religion, and that would bar the courts from reviewing First Amendment cases that pertain to the words ‘Under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance. Nor is the Supreme Court exempt from this list, most notably deciding in the recent case Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation that taxpayers had no standing to sue the Executive Branch when it violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

This intrusion of religion into government harms us all – non-religious and religious alike. Thus, for Humanists’ sake – indeed, for everyone’s sake – it’s important that we heed Rep. Pete Stark’s advice and continue to fight for church-state separation. Humanism’s cause isn't to eradicate religion, but we understand that there is a time and a place for religion and we should not tolerate its intrusion into government. Rather, in order to spread compassion, foster reason, and advance science, we continue our Humanist struggle to keep religion and government separate to benefit us all.

Karen Frantz is the policy and advocacy associate of the American Humanist Association and frequent contributor to the Humanist magazine.