OK. People face serious discrimination, people in my local atheist groups fear for their jobs if they come out. The emails from the local atheist billboard campaign were truly horrific. And what many atheists face from their families, even families who aren't extremely religious, it painful and can lead to lifelong rifts. As a longtime participant in the gay rights movement, I have been taught that self-definition is incredibly important; it matters a great deal that you should be able to label yourself as gay or straight, male or female, somewhere in between, or to eschew labels altogether. When those labels automatically mean you are going to be treated badly, it becomes an important political act to stand up and insist that you are not undeserving of equal treatment just because you don't identify with a different label. I am an atheist because I don't believe in gods, but I call myself an atheist because being an atheist means I get treated like shit by some people and that is not OK. And speaking of political acts: The reality is that people -- especially young people -- have been rallying under the banner of "atheism," in a way that they simply haven't been under the banner of "humanism." Atheism is getting lots of people excited, invigorated, mobilized, and motivated to take action. Humanism has been doing this, too -- but not nearly as much. And atheism has been getting visibility. Atheism is getting people talking: in news stories, in op-ed