Monday, Sept. 26, 2005 | 10:03 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- The career of the first lobbyist to represent atheists on Capitol Hill -- Las Vegan Lori Lipman Brown -- was forged in the political fires of Nevada.
Brown, 47, a former Nevada state senator and state Supreme Court nominee, moved to Washington two weeks ago and is already busy in her new job in the nation's capital as a lobbyist for the Secular Coalition for America, a coalition of five humanist and atheist groups.
"There is so much rhetoric out there putting down anyone who doesn't believe in a supernatural deity," Brown said amid meetings and interviews Monday. "We are not uniting in this country, we are dividing according to who is religious and who is not."
Brown's first experience with that came in her own 1994 re-election campaign. After advocating issues including gay rights and abortion rights as a state senator, Brown was perhaps best known for a stand she took on pre-session prayer.
Brown's opponent, Kathy Augustine, charged in political advertisements that Brown had actively opposed prayer and refused to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance. Brown, who comes from a Jewish family, had not said denominational prayers that referred to Jesus Christ during the last two weeks of the 1993 session, an arrangement she had discussed with Senate leaders. But she did say the pledge.
Augustine won the election.
Brown filed a defamation suit that was not settled until 3 1/2 years later. As part of a non-monetary settlement, Augustine and three other Republican lawmakers allied with Augustine in her allegations signed a letter acknowledging their claims had not been accurate. Augustine never apologized.
Augustine went on to become Nevada controller, and last year became the first statewide elected official to be impeached by the Assembly. Her staffers had done her campaign work on state time. She was censured by the Senate but not ousted from her job.
Brown had aspirations to serve in Congress, but Augustine's attack left Brown's political dreams in tatters and left Brown and her family scarred psychologically.
"I think it took about four years to get over it," Brown said. "I kept asking myself, 'How do I just let this go?' "
The experience gave Brown a first-hand look at how politicians use religion.
"There are a lot of politicians -- not just Kathy Augustine -- who use religion for political gain," Brown said. "It's not something sacred; it's a political tool now."
Brown, a lawyer and 29-year resident of Nevada, went back to teaching. Most recently she taught at Rancho High School by day and the University of Phoenix at night. Teaching a college course in constitutional law to adults rekindled her passion for activism, she said.
Brown said she was shocked by some of her students' hatred for nonbelievers.
"I was sitting there thinking, 'Wow, this is worse than I thought,' " Brown said.
Brown said some of her students simply refused to accept some laws, much like some of the politicians she will deal with on Capitol Hill, she said.
"Sometimes when you teach them what the law is, there are still people who will say that's not the law, just because they don't want it to be the law," Brown said.
Brown said she also learned a lot about politics after running last year for a state Supreme Court seat. She was pleasantly surprised that there was virtually no mud-slinging.
Brown said the race was also a lesson in the power of the Internet and "e-activism." She had spent about $7,000 and finished third, within 1 percentage point of second-place finisher John Mason, who raised about $730,000 in the primary.
"I was just surprised at how much could be done with so little money," she said.
Brown describes herself as a "humanistic Jew." Humanists have strong beliefs in morals and ethics that are derived from the nature of humanity and not from a supernatural being.
She said her top goals in her new job include advocating a clear separation of government and religion.
On Monday she attended lobbyist briefings on Bush administration proposals to funnel more money to religious schools for Hurricane Katrina victims.
"The disaster relief effort is being used as a political opportunity by some to start getting tax dollars used for religious programs," Brown said.
The coalition also believes references to God do not belong in the U.S. citizenship oath or in the Pledge of Allegiance. Brown plans to closely monitor federal courts that have said the words are an unconstitutional endorsement of religion, affirmed last week by a federal judge.
Coalition president Herb Silverman said Brown was the perfect person for the job -- a dynamic speaker with political experience and an outgoing personality who was willing to take a pay cut at a fledgling operation.
"She's in it for the cause and not to get rich," Silverman said.
There may be as many as 30 million nonreligious people in America, Silverman said. They may be the last minority that politicians still feel comfortable demonizing, Silverman said.
"We want them to recognize that there is another constituency out there," Silverman said. "We don't expect to turn Congress around overnight. We're in this for the long haul. It may take years. But we just felt that it was our time."
Nonreligious groups were galvanized shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, said Duncan Crary, another Coalition leader and Institute for humanist studies spokesman.
"There was a sense that patriotism equates to belief in God," Crary said. "Atheists, humanists and free thinkers were really made to feel as second-class citizens."
Brown has her work cut out for her. She is vastly outnumbered in Washington, where an array of religious groups have the ear of lawmakers and President Bush.
"This is a country that was built on Christianity -- it's a Christian country," Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America, said. "But I don't denigrate them (atheists.)
"If this is something they feel they have to do, then more power to them. We're going to continue to do what we think is right. The squeaky wheel gets the oil."
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