The Most Dangerous Woman in Tennessee

[Music] welcome to ask an atheist I'm Ryan Jane an attorney at FFRF and I am Andrew Seidel a constitutional attorney just like Ryan and the director of strategic response here at the Freedom From Religion Foundation and today we're gonna continue a broader discussion that we've been having about atheists running for public office a few weeks ago on this show you may have seen Andrew and Liz Cavell chatted with Hemant Mehta editor at the Friendly Atheist about the stigma attached to atheists running for public and political office I haven't explained that that stigma seems to be lessening that's right and you can actually see that episode of ask an atheist on ffrs youtube page you can also watch the talk that Hemant gave at the FFRF convention on that same topic now during the discussion in which Hemant presented a lot of good compelling evidence to make his case we kind of continually came back to this one point the stigma is lessening as more and more atheists run for office more atheists run less stigma on them all and that that applies to atheists not just running for office but outside of that context as well coming out of the closet is as a non-believer is one of the best things that you can do to combat this traditional stigma and today we are gonna talk to the most dangerous woman in Tennessee someone who actually walked the walk Gail Jordan is an attorney an Ironman athlete and activist at recovering from religion and she ran for state Senate in Tennessee twice and that's what we want to talk with her about today Gail welcome to ask an atheist thank you I'm delighted to be with you so so Gail you ran for Tennessee state Senate District 14 in 2016 and then again in 2018 and you did that you did that as an atheist so let's let's first of all it started off by watching your campaign video I love this okay I've been a Rutherford County resident most of my adult life I raised my four children on the hard work and fresh air of farm life and they're all Tennessee public school graduates I was a stay at home mom until my kids began to leave for college when I returned to my long-held dream of attending law school and I became a lawyer in 2015 when I'm asked how I would govern I have a simple three question test is it rational does this legislation solve an identified problem in the state of Tennessee is it reasonable does this legislation make the very best use of your tax dollars in mind and is it right does this legislation do the most good for the largest number of people with the least negative impact for the fewest number of people my vision for district 14 provides health care for the working folks who need it while saving our rural hospitals compensating our teachers with higher wages and tangible benefits while eliminating unnecessary student testing and addressing our opioid addiction problem by D stigmatizing treatment holding the pharmaceutical industry accountable and legalizing cannabis my name is Gayle and I'm asking for your vote on March 13th in this special election for district 14 okay so that was your campaign video Gayle and we can show that now because you're not currently running for office FFRF as everybody knows we are a nonpartisan organization we don't take sides in any political contests but this is about what you did that's not a current ad correct that's correct and it's quite radical isn't it it really is I mean it's shocking shocking shocking stuff in there healthcare education okay can you tell everybody a little bit to start off just kind about why you decided to run sure sure I have often said that the two want two of the most important characteristics to have to run for office are a big mouth and a thick skin and I have both and there was a need in my I live in Tennessee there we have a Republican super majority very rural religious Republican district I have a my district was a five County district and my the Republican who held the office in 2016 had it not even had a Democratic opponent in years and so I felt compelled to do it we have as the is the video addressed we have a terrible opioid addiction problem we have our rural hospitals are closing because of course we didn't expand Medicaid we we had issues that were beginning to really affect my neighbors not the people that are in my neighborhood and the people that are in my district and I felt like it was important to have a visible choice to have a choice and have someone running on the things that really made a difference in our district so that makes a lot of sense to me that your and your campaign video kind of highlighted all the things you were just talking about that these are the actual the the things that are on the minds of the people in your district right so you the your ear atheism wasn't mentioned certainly but I'm sure you you knew that was gonna come up right in that kind of rural religious district so how did you handle that running as an atheist in that environment were you planning on kind of avoiding it or we're hitting it head-on how what was your thought process on that thank you for asking that question I had been in out atheist for years so there was no way to run for office I had no intention of hiding from it nor did I have the ability to hide from any of it so that was never an option but neither was I going to make it the center part of my campaign I knew that the folks in my district would struggle with it as a matter of fact before I ran I went to each of the County Democratic Party leadership and I told my story I told how I used to have a belief in some of those things that religious people believe in that I had been brought up in that that I had I was so devoted to it I raised my children in the church and that at some point in my life I began to lose confidence in those beliefs and so when I shared the story with the parties I said I I want to run all the things that matter in our district but you need to know this about me and they were overwhelmingly supportive they none of them they all knew that it was going to be something of an issue but having told the initial story and and explaining to them in a way that they could understand and accept and support me through we didn't have as we launched the campaign we were prepared for we were ready for what we thought we were ready for we knew that our opponent might bring it up but we didn't realize the extent to which they would go so they did bring it up too I mean they they essentially attempted to weaponize your atheism against you do you want to tell us about maybe I mean listen let's talk about that from that one piece of Direct Mail first or some of those pieces I think well you have an image of it that we can show while you're explaining to people what what happened here sure as soon as that video was released and as I said it's as that's as vanilla democratic principles video as you can get health care education infrastructure all the things that we so firmly believe in and yet when it was released the other side both my opponent in his campaign and the Tennessee Republican Party responded so strongly as you see on your screen they started with with mailers huge pictures of just my distorted face things that I had said they must have they did a lot of research that I had been on podcast through the years telling my story and they tried to capture as many of those statements as they could and they those things are expensive as you know it there were about 50,000 voting households in our district and they just blanketed and they were coming every day I'm a resident of the district so I would walk to my mailbox and brace myself for what horrible picture of my face what horrible thing have I said that they're going to put all this on this flyer and blank at the district with now though I think the worst one of those are the stories that you told was you married a couple of your friends and that they used that that that marriage you posted out on Facebook it became an attack ad can you can you tell that story because that that to me was just pretty pretty shocking even in this day and age right right in the December prior to my special election in March of 2018 I had had the privilege to marry these two gentlemen they're dear friends of mine and the flyer that you see that's a flyer they had taken an image that I had posted on my Facebook page of course after the ceremony and with their permission in classic Gale Jordan snart because I have no other way of managing myself I said doing my part to destroy the fabric of America because of you know it's funny it's funny because I'm funny because it was such a joyful day in these two men obviously are very devoted to one another and what a joy to have brought them together and and had the privilege of marrying them my opponent took the image and put it on a flyer and used my the language that I used believe her when she says she's going to destroy the fabric of America and that was bad that was bad enough but the rest of the story is both of these gentlemen are constituents of the district one of these gentlemen is a United States Air Force veteran with combat related PTSD and so one March morning he walked to his mailbox and pulled out the flyer with a picture of the happiest day of his life being mocked by the 50,000 people in the district it was brutal it was so intrusive the when I when I talk about my experience I often say that both Shane and Lyndon have pursued legal action against the Tennessee Republican Party that's as much as I'll say in the interest of protecting their privacy and I always try to mention Thank You Shane for your service to our country well what a terrible thing just generally you know as a side note that you're trying to win political points win an election but just be thoughtless or just you don't care that oh yeah I'm taking this image that's the happiest day in someone's life and we're going to use that as a way to try to attack somebody else I think that's just that's despicable can I also ask I it's striking to me that in a in a district that's I would think the your opponent shouldn't have had great alarm at being challenged you said it's a rural you know heavily Republican leaning different district that they spent all this money and did all this this campaigning against you do you think was that just because they were they were worried about a is that par for the course and then just this is a Democrat running against us we need to really ground her you know into dust or do you think part of it was that your your atheism kind of rattled them we are they so afraid of having an atheist in the Senate or what do you think it is I think it was probably a combination of some of those things when I ran in 2016 I ran against a 12 year incumbent who did not had an opponent they didn't pay any attention to me there were no fliers there were and I got the same 35% as every other Democrat in the state of Tennessee in the 2016 cycle the 2018 was a special election the fellow who had won the seat in 2016 took a position in the Trump administration in agriculture that seat became an open seat and as you know in a special election the time frame is quite compressed and so your your campaign strategy is a little bit different because you only have a 12 week period of time in which you can campaign additionally you're the only election on the ballot and so it was a unique set of circumstances the my opponent was a very wealthy pharmacist and that comes with baggage in some of the rural areas so between all of those things and this remember that the 2018 was after the world changed in 2016 and Democrats were waking up to the fact that democracy requires defending so between all of those things we think that we had a better chance than we had had in 20-18 we'd had a special election in a nearby district and they had come close to winning so all of those things together we didn't have the funding to be able to do polling but sometimes on the other side you have people that share information with you what I get us I'm getting at is the other side did do polling and we kept getting information that we were we were ahead because what you're trying to do in a special election is not so much a persuasive campaign with the circumstances with my being an atheist we didn't even attempt to do a persuasive campaign what we were working on was what's known as a get out the vote campaign and it was having a an effect and so as as the Election Day got nearer and we had our early voting period of time the information that we were getting back is that we were ahead so not only had they prepared themselves with the Flyers because they knew the circumstances that they were all of those things that I said were in our favor the other side was aware of that too and then after early voting when we got the information that we were ahead that's when the other side took their most drastic step now you gotta tell right so as they as they found themselves in a predicament I think they made a decision to engage in unethical and unconstitutional behavior the campaign manager of the other side sent a letter to all of the churches in our district and it started with good afternoon dear pastors and friends it was very targeted to the pastor's that's in fact the campaign manager told his own bona fides he's a pastor and he loves baby Jesus more than anybody and his candidate loves baby Jesus as much as anybody and the other side is an atheist running for office and so he in the paragraph in the letter it says so please tell your congregation to go out and vote in this special election remember that the biggest obstacle for a special election is getting out the vote letting people know that there is this weird random Tuesday afternoon in March where we're going to have a special election they blanketed the churches in the district and in rural Tennessee that's a lot of churches and a lot of pastors that they said this letter to and if as I talk about this I often say and if you don't think that those pastors began to preach that message from the pulpit to tell their congregation that there was a special election and that there was an atheist running then you don't know religion and you don't know Tennessee well and this is an issue that's very near and dear to FFRF we've sued over this a number of time number of times up for everybody watching who's familiar with it this is we're talking about the Johnson amendment right now so this is the federal rule that says that nonprofits must be nonpartisan it's why I gave that disclaimer at the top of this episode that FFRF is a nonpartisan organization we're not endorsing or opposing anybody for public office that is required for every tax-exempt organization in the country if you want a tax exemption you must be nonpartisan and the reason for that is pretty basic we want charitable donations to go to charitable work we don't want it to go to political work now if you listen to those pastors or maybe to your opponent's campaign manager the argument that they will make is well hey we have freedom of speech and religious freedom and nobody's saying that they can't endorse a candidate we're just saying that they can't do it as their nonprofit so they can't do what you suggested which is get up in the pulpit and say vote for or against so-and-so just as that we can't get on this show and say vote for or against so-and-so Ryan and I are perfectly able to do that when we're sitting around our own dinner table or on our own personal social media feeds and stuff like that and pastors could even could even say on issues they can help to get out the vote generally they could get up there and say hey there's a special election we encourage everybody to vote and we encourage you to vote for someone who is going to uphold the values that are important to you right they could say that but where it crosses a really clear line is where they're saying this is a candidate who's an atheist we want you to show up and make sure this person doesn't win very blatant and and the sad part here is that the campaign they are the ones who they had no restriction or they felt no restriction on Lori these pastors in unconstitutional behavior they not all about most of our most of our churches in our area are rural rural voters and it's a rural area and sometimes they're a little bit low information and I'll be quite frank with you a lot of these pastors probably don't have a comprehensive understanding they didn't set out to engage in unconstitutional behavior my opponent however is a politician at the state level he and his campaign should have had a huge understanding of what kind of what kind of behavior that was going to elicit and so I think it says a little bit of something about their character that the campaign would have entice these pastors to give this message from the pulpit I think that's an excellent point they're sophisticated enough to know what the rules are and they are I think the word enticing is a great one they're enticing people who may not know what the rules are to violate the law to break the law yeah now one of the pastors that did it was was not local it was a kind of a big name in in pastoring if that's a that's a thing you want to tell us about that a little bit I'm sure as the campaign began to build in momentum we kept getting surprised by all of the attention that was brought to us and it's in this the topic of today's conversation which is atheist running for office and so I got retweeted and commented on by art my dear brother Franklin by Franklin Graham who had an opinion on whether or not I should run for office and as I said I had not intended on making my atheism part of my campaign it was going to come up honestly Andrew and Ryan if I had to do it all over again I might would have campaigned harder on it because as you heard in my campaign video what compels me to do good is the well-being of my neighbors is their genuine suffering in their genuine well-being and so as as Franklin Graham came after me and said that my being an atheist whatever it was he said really and truly my atheism is what informs my morality it is what in what compels me to do good whether that's running for office are contributing to local good deeds or trying to make my local library a better place or whatever it is I do it's because I hold a belief that since our our one fabulous awesome wonderful true life and making my community better makes my life better I mean it is a little not as altruistic as it might sound I know what it feels like to thrive and I know what it feels like to suffer and that compassion and that empathy drives me to do good so if I had to do it all over again and my advice for folks is not to be hesitant and not to be afraid to run on the values that we hold this this is the truest American value is that we want to make our country and our communities better places beautifully put that's it's a beautiful sentiment as well and I think that kind of goes to the heart of one of the well to me let me let me rephrase it I think it's striking that that that your empathy that derives from your shared humanity is so threatening and scary to the other side and and I want to back up to the beginning you know we call this what you used the title for your talk the most dangerous woman in Tennessee we did that because that was a label given to you by the lieutenant governor right and I Bruce do you have Bruce do you have that tweet I think we had I think we have that tweet it was the first one we were gonna show so there it is Randy McNally tell us about that Gayle there it is of course as soon as we released our campaign video and you keep in mind that we had a about a 12 week time period so things happened quickly so we got our campaign video prepared and when it launched and and we saw it at the beginning of the of the broadcast it was pretty straight forward and yet when it released these folks just responded so viciously and this is the this is a state Senate seat this is the lieutenant governor of the state of Senate Tennessee and he's talking about a fellow Tennessee citizen that he would say that I'm the most dangerous woman and and this kind of reaction and and the and the Tennessee gops reaction and my candidate my opposing candidates campaigns reaction it is I think it's telling that they react so quickly when it's as we I do think it's important for us have visibility as non-believers as atheist whatever language we use to identify ourselves to help the shock value of this kind of thing I often say when I give this talk never again will Tennessee be able to say oh we've never had an atheist running for state office well yeah and we're done with that now and so maybe the next time the lieutenant governor won't feel compelled to call that person the most dangerous woman in Tennessee or man or whatever because they're getting over themselves guess what there are atheists and even in rural Tennessee yeah that makes a lot of sense to me and especially if you are getting in front of what your secularism means and saying this means that I have an interest in making life better in the real world for the people around me and you know the the sort of neighborly empathy that you're expressing it becomes absurd for them to say these this is the most dangerous idea I've ever seen that's I think people more and more are going to look at that and say you've you've got to be kidding me so that's just that makes sense to me that you would run harder on that to the extent that you're getting out in front of that that argument do you have any other advice that you would give to anyone who might be listening who is non-religious and is thinking of possibly running for office sure sure I think one of the first things that we need to do we as a secular community need to do is get over this this binary approach to these seats yes we absolutely needed the seats especially here in Tennessee and yes we were it was it was it was a loss that we didn't get the seat but as I give this talk around different areas I try to bring up the positive takeaways and one of the positive takeaways is that at that March 2018 election thousands of religious Democrats have voted for an out invisible atheist so there's that that matters that matters for the next person who runs that matters for the national and the local conversation of atheists running for office and the other positive thing that is that was a huge takeaway for me in a particularly religious area like I am here in Tennessee and you're an atheist obviously we've been talking about people's visceral response to it religious people's visceral response we ever get the opportunity to offend ourselves and go hold the phone hold the phone we're not sacrificing babies we're not you know worshipping Satan and we don't ever get the chance to defend ourselves if they identify us as an atheist and that's the end of the story running for office everywhere I went because the GOP the Tennessee GOP decided to make a big issue out of this every podcast every television interview every newspaper article every appearance I got to explain what it means to be an atheist I got to explain what I do believe in I got to explain how I arrived at my conclusion I got to defend myself and and when do you ever have that opportunity so my encouragement to folks to to folks who whatever word they use to identify themselves but you're going against the grain you're whether you're in a highly religious area or not is it will give you the opportunity to define who you are and what you believe because running for office does put a spotlight on you I often I often say you running for office was open to me because that was what the area of need was if the area of need had been for me to help with a campaign or to do door-knocking or to any number of things then that's where I think we need to plug in but we don't discount the fact that you may be the point person you may be the face you may be it may be a good opportunity for you to run for office and recognize it for the privilege and joy that it was and the opportunity to get to say this Who I am and this is what I believe I love that and I think your first point to that we should stop looking at elections as binary is really important I was actually interviewing Trey Crowder for FFRF TV show freethought matters he is the liberal redneck the comedian many people are familiar with him if not look him up he's hilarious also from Tennessee also from Tennessee and and he made the point that you know he's one of the things he's trying to do is to tear down the stigma that's attached to people with a southern accent he's you know look of southerners are gonna vote liberal in every single election that means there's a massive chunk of the sad American South that is liberal and progressive and they care about these issues and when we treat this out as this monolith that's conservative and religious we're doing a disservice to everybody down there who's running for office and like you say you guy I meant to look up the numbers but thousands of people in Tennessee voted for an atheist for public office I mean that is amazing and that should encourage everybody to go out there and run for office now I want to follow up with one more question when we discussed running with hemant he hypothesized that addressing atheism early on but focusing on issues seemed to be the recipe for a success so in other words saying yep I'm an atheist now let me tell you my plan to fix the roads in our community now you were just saying seems to be slightly opposed that that you know your empathy and your values derive from your atheism and your secularism and your humanism and you wanted to talk about that I also think part of it was that you had your opponent's major atheism a larger issue so I'm not sure you had the option to do that can you talk a little bit about that again I know you said you would run on it a little bit harder do you think hem ins take that it's easier to just say I'm an atheist and then switch to the issues is worthwhile or would you double down on yours my goodness that one's a wide open question I would have to put my trust in the person who's running in your district the first piece of advice I would say is to get to know your district if you have the privilege as him instead of being able to state it and move on like you would in a in a less most conservative district you might be able to get away with that I'm an atheist here's here's what my plan is those of us who are in some of the districts where it's a little bit bigger deal we may have to spend a little bit more time on it so my so so my answer to that Andrews boat is kind of a weak hybrid of whatever it is you feel like your your district is going to need well whoever you are as a person if it's something if you feel comfortable with what your beliefs are and where you've gotten how about it tell them about it I I've shared my story it's all over the internet I'm proud of the work that I have done to get where I am some other folks may not have the same experience maybe they just don't have the confidence or maybe they don't have the ability to tell the story maybe there are people who they deeply care about that they don't want to include in their story parents or a spouse or something or children in public school that they feel like they can't do that there's if this would be individual to everyone's district it the one thing that is universal that I would say is it will take some strategy it will take talking to some people it will take learning what your district is like it will take taking seriously what this is what kind of impact this is going to have in the office in which you're running that sounds like a very lawyerly it depends and gale it also reminds me of you know talking about getting to know your particular district another piece of advice that I've heard you give in the past is to encourage people who are thinking about running for office to start at the ground level so looking at school board's municipal boards things like that right is that something you still believe it even though you didn't follow that yourself you jumped right into the state level right absolutely I think I think that is a very good piece of advice not only not only starting at the at the local level for office but starting in on the edges of a campaign rather than right at the top if you want to be part of you know of a campaign that's helpful to learn the language and learn the procedure and see how it all works that's helpful in my particular case as I said my five County district I do endurance competition events Ironman that kind of thing and I have written miles and miles and miles on my bicycle and because I'm in a rural area I've been all over my district and people knew me part of the joy of training like that is stopping at the little diners and the little public squares and and getting to know people and stopping at the coffee shop when you're out doing a 70 mile bike ride you know it's nice to have a little break people knew me from the bicycle my paper had run a couple of stories on my you know by doing the races and so that helps having having a bond and having a relationship with your king with the whatever the district is that you're going to run in whether that's a local school district or whether it's a state Senate district or a House District or whatever it is having established a relationship ahead of time is always helpful because you've identified yourself before you ever begin to ask people for their vote now Dale we're running a little short on time and I really want to get to audience questions of which we've got five or six later already it looks like but real quick can you tell us what you're doing now you know I mean you've said you're doing some triathlons but tell us about your work right now sure sure so so I'm doing the usual lawyer work I do I have a mediation practice and a little do a little bit of estate planning and the lawyer stuff but the thing I'm more excited about doing is I serve as the executive director of recovering from religion which is what a surprise from someone who came out of religion that I recognize that sometimes religion can have lasting effects and the process away from religion can be somewhat long and arduous recovering from religion exists to provide hope healing and support for people that are struggling with doubt and non belief that informs all of our projects we have a 24-hour telephone hotline 184 I doubt it we have a 24 hour internet chat we have an online community we have local support groups recovering from religion org is the website I would encourage everybody whichever's wherever along the spectrum you may fall to give us a thickness look at our website and see the programs that we're involved in we're always looking for volunteers and so if you've got a moment visit the website recovering from religion org okay our Fr and between the two groups we've got okay so we've got we've got quite a few questions here this is uh this is go so here Justin Scott who is an activist in Iowa if you've ever seen a news story about an atheist asking a politician in Iowa a question at a town hall it's usually Justin Scott he says this is such a great discussion this needs to be a must watch on the county level of every political party imaginable parties that lead to more non-religious folks stepping up to imagine watch parties excuse me Justin they lead to more non-religious folks stepping up to run for public office yeah I mean I really would encourage anybody watching this to do that you know one of the I think I told this story last night one of the most probably the most rewarding part of the founding myth book tour that I had was when somebody came up to me after the talk after the Q&A session said you know listening to you I just I'm going to run for school and a week later I got an email and she sent me her her website for her campaign and to me that was kind of the best moment I really would encourage everybody to get out there and to me I think what the biggest hurdle is and Gail maybe you want to speak to this too is people look at what a qualified candidate would be and say well that's not me I don't know anything about this and my response to that is just look at who is in public office right now like a horse you are qualified anybody watching this is qualified to run for something and they should absolutely especially when you're in that you are a resident of the community you're a citizen in your community the the school board affects you the road board affects you the water board affects you you are completely qualified to run the religious pieces is is an aside I do want to give a little shout out to Justin Justin does the yeoman's work with making himself visible I talked about the importance of his ability so that people can see that yes there are atheists among us and Justin does that he kind of dogs all of the candidates and he asks them about how they're going to react with atheist voters and what they're going to do with atheist voters and so he has made himself vulnerable and visible and so shout out to Justin for the hard work that he has done yeah now everybody this is your periodic reminder that FFRF is nonpartisan we don't take stances and elections and we have talked a lot about partisan politics though and we have a question from Dan Barker whose name should be familiar to most aren't there also atheists in the Republican Party who wants to you guys can probably speak to that better than I can I assume there are yeah I think I'll turn that back over to you yeah my thoughts on it is if you look at demographics of course there are there are certainly many atheists in the Republican Party but you can imagine that given the the contours of the party at least recently I could understand that it's a very difficult thing to for them to come out of the closet as an atheist if you're in the Republican Party well you are needing to win over votes voting blocs like evangelicals and so that's potentially very tricky the Christian nationalism has made it I think harder to be in at least an atheist running for public office in the Republican Party but atheists are everywhere I think that's one of the big things that FFRF tries to show we are everywhere we're in your community we're your doctors your nurses your teachers your police officers your firefighters we are your elected officials we get complaints here at FFRF from elected officials all the time they write through our complaint form and say hey this is going on at my City Council I'm the mayor I need political cover can you write a letter from FFRF opposing this thing so that I can blame you when we all vote against it I mean this is it there we are everywhere the important point to make is that the most important point to make and enter you did it so well in your book is you don't have to be an atheist to understand and appreciate and acknowledge the importance of the separation of church and state you can be a religious person and feel strongly about it and whatever your beliefs are and understand that government and religion do not mix they that's not neither one is healthy whenever they mix but certainly our government is not healthy whenever church and state cross over and so so that's the other piece of it not only are there atheists everywhere and obviously they're going to be in all parties but you don't have to be an atheist to understand you can be a religious person and comprehend an embrace separation of church and state absolutely I mean and to me that's that's a crucial point I mean separation of state and church protects religious freedom as much as it does our right to a secular government there is no freedom of religion without a government that is free from religion yeah we do a lot of collaborative work with interfaith groups groups that are composed of churches and synagogues and other groups that are religious communities that understand that everybody is better served if we stand up for separation of state and church all right we've got a few more questions Gayle so Tommy Adkins asks did you ever get any death threats at running for office I got a lot of ugly emails I I may have gotten some that crossed the line none that we took terribly seriously but it was mostly it was just ugliness it was just name-calling and you know character assassination all that all the ugly stuff and and we got a few that sort of cross the lines that people are they're afraid and so they're trying to make you feel oh I'm trying to kind of analyze this armchair analysis about what why they might be doing something like that we turned them over you know to our local law enforcement folks and and it was the law enforcement that told us that they didn't think that any of those were serious but certainly got the got the old crank mail were they were they related to because I mean that that stuff happens to every politician and person running for public office so so were they specifically related to your your godless heathen ways or where they just general 100 percent related it wasn't it wasn't my it wasn't that I was a Democrat I mean that yes we are fractured in the state over those things and yes they you know they they don't have an understanding of why we would want to have health care for working people working poor who don't have it it was so no no it was not about that every bit of it was about the religious piece about burning in hell and you know facing your master your God whatever they would say after you die and that kind of thing it was very related to the religion well we got one final question here from Cassie Murray what was the biggest challenge that you faced as an atheist running for office there were moments when because I was in a rural district that at my my best friend served as my campaign manager dear a dear dear friend and she and I did it would travel the county and we would find ourselves in the basement of a church on a church or a building where we were going to speak with a group and it was very rural and very religious and we had no allies this was not our group we we might have one or two people and these even though we didn't do a persuasion campaign you you kind of have to make appearances at these places our opponents going to be there maybe this is a Farm Bureau meeting maybe it's a County Extension meeting and you wouldn't have an ally in the room and to stand up there and to hear your opponent say his part and then to have to get up and and defend yourself and defend the principles upon which you were running it's it's intimidating I I don't know that I would consider that the worst part it was one of the most challenging you have to be prepared for it you have to know that it's coming you have to know how you're going to respond we never were fearful for our safety or anything like that but it's when you're in a room full of people who you have this sensation of how they feel about you and what they think about you and what they believe about you and to stand up and to go against that is a challenge and it's a challenge that if you are prepared for it's much more manageable well Gail thank you so much for joining us today judging by your bookshelf or your taste in literature we really do appreciate you taking the time to chat with everybody about this and encourage everybody to run for public office if they're able saying thank you so much for joining us on ask an atheist though we are out of time if we didn't get to your questions please tune in again next week we're gonna we're happy to answer more we're gonna keep on with this conversation I think for a few weeks we're gonna try to get some other speakers on about this so that's it for us today as always visit our website ffrs org for all sorts of information on our activities and to join us in fighting to keep state and church separate we would love to have you as a member and this actually wraps it up for us for 2019 so as you might get next year yes next year as you might be aware of the next two Wednesday's are federal holidays so we'll be taking those off along with the rest of the country so thank you again for watching and we'll be back in 2020 with more of FFRF s ask an atheist [Music] [Music]

Channel: FFRF

Views: 19,401

Rating: 4.871707 out of 5

Keywords: Gayle Jordan, Recover From Religion, Franklin Graham, atheists political office, atheists running for office, Atheist Politicians, Johnson Amendment, atheist election, FFRF, Freedom From Religion Foundation, Atheism, Atheist

Id: PsntKfiuu-o

Length: 41min 32sec (2492 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 18 2019