"We are participating in this march to reclaim the American nation as a secular nation because we feel it's being moved more and more to a religious nation," said Katherine Bourdonnay, a spokeswoman for Council for Secular Humanism.
"While America has many religious roots, it was founded as a secular nation, with a distinct separation of church and state," she said.
Council for Secular Humanism is one of 71 organizations planning to participate in the Nov. 22 march. Others are African Americans for Humanism, American Atheists, Mind Over Madness and Atheist Alliance International.
According to American Atheists, the march will be the first of its kind held in the nation's capital.
The group states: "Just about every political and social 'cause' organization has done it – gays, blacks, women, even the Promise Keepers. Groups of every ideological coloration have spoken out and demanded a seat at the table by mobilizing their supporters for a march or demonstration in our nation's capital. Now, it's our turn,"
Promise Keepers is an evangelical men's movement whose members commit themselves to religious faith, family values and personal morality. The group conducted its Washington assembly this past weekend as part of a 16-stop tour.
Godless Americans March will feature guest speakers, a rally, and activities for children. "It will be a very kid-friendly event," said Joe Zamecki, office manager at American Atheists Center, "and we're planning on keeping this very positive. [It's] not going to be a religion-bashing fest."
The march will provide atheists and agnostics the opportunity to talk about many of the social issues important to them, Zamecki said, "the civil rights of nonbelievers being the number one thing." Other issues will include "the Pledge of Allegiance, the [school] voucher situation, also ... what it's like personally to be in America as a nonbeliever."
Zamecki said the hostility toward Godless Americans has increased in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"Now of course we mourn right along with religious people in America," said Zamecki, "but there [were] a lot of people in the media and in the government who took advantage of that to go ahead and promote religion ... A lot of them also felt that that was a reason to slander nonbelievers."
Zamecki said an example was Secretary of State Colin Powell's denunciation of the terrorist hijackers of Sept. 11 as "people who had no religion and no belief in a faith."
Organizers of Godless Americans March claim they are working to restore the original secular nature of the United States government, which they say was displaced as organized religion began to play a larger and larger role in American society.
Conservative Christian opponents, however, counter that the opposite is true – that American society originally had a deeply entrenched religious devotion that became diluted over time.
"Government and religion [have] always been intertwined since the founding of this nation, especially when you look at the many, many quotes from our Founding Fathers in which they relied on God for the establishment of our nation," said Ray Sharp, director of special projects at American Family Association.
Sharp quoted James Madison's statement: "Religion is the basis and foundation of government," and said numerous early state constitutions required those who assumed public office to make a profession of faith in God.
As for Bourdonnay's insistence that a religious revival is under way in America, Sharp said, "I think there's been a renewal of the recognition that Christianity is well entwined in our nation as a whole, and as well in our government. You cannot separate the two."
According to the most recent American Religious Identification Survey, approximately 30 million people in the United States identify themselves as atheist, humanist, freethinker or agnostic. That number amounts to about 13 percent of the U.S. population.
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