Reaction
Atheist groups by and large considered the march a success, though some within the atheist community did criticize the event for a number of reasons, including the exclusion of theists from being able to endorse the event, how atheism was defined for the purposes of the march, and the apparent attempt by organizers to use the march as a way of "creating an identity for nonbelievers."
An organization calling itself the Religious Freedom Coalition ran newspaper ads the day before the event characterizing the views of atheists and Satanists to be identical. Following the event, the same organization called the event a success, but described it as "ill timed" and an indication of a dangerous brand of new atheism.
Following the march, leaders of three atheist organizations - Atheist Alliance International, the Institute for Humanist Studies, and the Internet Infidels - met and set in motion the founding of the Secular Coalition for America.
Hemant Mehta of the blog the Friendly Atheist and author of I Sold My Soul on eBay referenced the event in the context of the Reason Rally which was held on Saturday, March 24th, 2012.
Read more about this topic: Godless Americans March On Washington
Famous quotes containing the word reaction:
“More and more, when faced with the world of men, the only reaction is one of individualism. Man alone is an end unto himself. Everything one tries to do for the common good ends in failure.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“Sole and self-commanded works,
Fears not undermining days,
Grows by decays,
And, by the famous might that lurks
In reaction and recoil,
Makes flames to freeze, and ice to boil.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The excessive increase of anything often causes a reaction in the opposite direction.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)