Atheism in Judicial Discourse: A Comparative Analysis of the US and the Italian Constitutional Scenario

In a recent paper, Erhan G. Quillen made the evaluable effort to reconstruct chuch-state crelation in the US context in terms of “Atheist Exceptionalism.” Indeed, for a long time Atheism has been perceived as a disliked minority in the U.S. scenario. The controversial question concerning the legal protection of Atheism has been the object of a harsh political and academic debate, culminating in fierce litigation and affecting the interpretation of the Religion Clauses. In Italy, since the 1990s, where the UAAR claimed its right to start negotiations to enter into an agreement with the State, Italian courts have faced the crucial issue of the legal definition of a religious denomination, as a preliminary requirement to have access to an agreement. In a recent judgement the Constitutional Court held that the Government enjoys broad political discretion with regard to the decision to start negotiations grounded on article 8.3 of our Constitution with religious communities and courts cannot second-guess such a political choice. The key questinis whether the decision is consistent with the Italian Constitutional framework as a whole and with article 17 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The present aims to analyze, in a comparative perspective, atheist claims in order to assess whether and to what extent they promoted an evolutive interpretation of the meaning of religion in constitutional language and increased the visibility of Atheism in the public space.