Both those articles, and the comments seem focused on liberal's tolerance of religion as a problem, to a degree that astonishes me as an outsider looking into their communities. The crushing weight of cognitive dissonance seems so vast that it lends an almost religious aura to their discussions as they carefully avoid the rather glaring truth that religion permeates US politics at all levels but that it's clearly more ingrained on the Republican side.

What's always missing from these discussions is that that patronising mockery and outright dismissal is how atheists and agnostics have always been treated by the religious - it wasn't until atheists started really kicking and screaming about the injustice that people started to take note. One the one hand you have folks like this complaining of atheists merely being (gasp) rude!, and on the other hand you have things like some states in the US still not allowing atheists to hold office, by articles in their consitutions[1].

It's exactly the same with women's rights and minority civil rights: "Really, people would listen to them more if they just toned down and spoke politely". We already know that that doesn't work and just gets you ignored.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/07/08/t...