Casey Chalk at The Federalist cites a Washington Post op-ed by a scholar named Paul Djupe in which Professor Djupe asks why white evangelicals fear that atheists and Democrats would strip away their religious rights.
The reasons Djupe gives to account for this "fear" - conservative propaganda and psychological projection of what evangelicals would do to atheists had they the power - are unconvincing. The simplest explanation is that the last decade or so has provided us a track record that gives disturbing insights into the thinking of secularists who wield political power.
Chalk mentions several examples:
1. The Department of Health and Human Services, as part of the Affordable Care Act, mandated in 2011 that certain employers provide all FDA-approved contraceptives, including abortifacients, in their health insurance plans. The narrow religious exemption did not include religious nonprofits such as the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic order of nuns that manages homes for the elderly poor across America, nor businesses such as Hobby Lobby.
A district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit ruled against the Little Sisters of the Poor, and it was only in 2016 that the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the lower court and secured the liberties of the religious order. Hobby Lobby won in a separate 2014 case.
2. Over the last decade and a half, a number of jurisdictions, including the state of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., have targeted Christian adoption agencies that refuse to place children with same-sex or unmarried couples. Many of these adoption agencies have since closed.
3. The pro-choice organization NARAL, a prominent supporter of Democratic candidates, opposes conscience laws that allow medical practitioners to exempt themselves from activities, such as abortion or euthanasia, that violate their religious beliefs.
4. Several Democratic presidential candidates have declared their support for legislation that would prohibit employers — including Christian schools or organizations — from maintaining rules about their employees’ sexual behavior. When the media reported that Vice President Mike Pence’s wife Karen had taken a position at an evangelical Virginia school that prohibits employees and students from homosexual behavior, left-leaning secular media ruthlessly attacked her.
Also, a cake baker in suburban Denver, despite the U.S. Supreme Court upholding his religious liberty in 2018, is still facing harassment by the state of Colorado because he refuses to participate in a gay wedding.
Djupe references research he conducted which found that atheists were more likely than evangelicals to agree that groups with which they disagree should still be permitted to exercise various liberties, but this finding is unpersuasive.
The question is not how the average neighborhood atheist would respond over the phone to a pollster's question probing his or her degree of tolerance, but rather what this same individual would be willing to go along with should more radical fellow unbelievers accede to power.
The record of the last decade shows that evangelicals may well have legitimate cause for concern.