Len of the excellent Blogesque sent me an email all about a contest to find the highest level nontheist in Government service:
The Secular Coalition for America (SCA) will award one thousand dollars ($1,000) to the person who identifies the highest level atheist, humanist, freethinker or other nontheist currently holding elected public office in the United States of America.* The SCA is an advocacy organization representing the interests of nontheists in the nation’s capital.
Although our Constitution states, “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States,” the religion of our elected officials figures prominently in America. As a nation, we have made progress in preventing religious bias from influencing some electoral choices. John F. Kennedy in 1960 was the first Roman Catholic to become President and Keith Ellison from Minnesota, if elected this November, would become the first Muslim to be elected to Congress. Members of other groups once precluded from the political arena because of prejudice (such as women, African Americans, Jews, Mexican Americans, Mormons and gay/lesbians) have been elected to public offices; however, atheists, humanists, freethinkers and other nontheists are invisible in the electoral arena.
It seems this was inspired by an exchange between Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Michael Newdow during the Pledge of Allegiance case the Supreme Court so neatly dodged actually handing down a ruling on by deciding he didn’t have standing to file the lawsuit. I’ll be amazed if anyone finds a nontheist of any stripe above the State level of government anywhere.
Posted on 10/12/2006 at 05:49 PM 
That’s a pretty sad thing too, but I’m sure you should get ready to be amazed. I bet there are plenty of atheists in government - though they may find it hard to stay in government if people really knew they didn’t believe. Hell, according to Ernest Hemmingway, “All thinking men are atheists”, which may be an exaggeration, but it stikes at the heart of the issue: Rationalism and Religion have been at odds for hundreds of years, and the biggest threat to the political and social power weilded by religious institutions is a free thinking, educated public.
In addition, most of the founding fathers wouldn’t be considered theists in today’s world anyway - at least not according to Robin Morgan’s book, Fighting Words: A Toolkit For Combatting the Religious Right:
Cheers