Another shameless plea

You know the drill: I find your feedback invaluable. I'd love to hear what you think of this.

I have an offer for an advertisement. The ad would be for an atheist discussion board.

So far, I have turned away one advertisement for a site that is specifically anti-religious. And I've turned away a few for products or services that were extremely religious.

I have to say that it wasn't just the money that made me feel bad about turning away one of them. I won't name any names, but one very nice guy sent me an email about placing an ad for his educational science products in SHM. The word "apologia" appeared prominently in the company's name, and he signed off with an apparently sincere blessing in my direction.

I spent several days pondering as to whether he assumed that we were inclusive rather than non-religious, or whether he took a cheeky delight in marching right up to the devil's door, as it were, and asking if we'd like to buy some cookies. Neither would have bothered me (I quite approve of cheekiness, so long as it isn't being practiced by my son when Mommy is desperately trying to work, sleep, or think). But I never could come up with a tactful way of asking a man possessed of several advanced degrees, "So, do you, um, know exactly what secular means?"

(I did of course write back to him, thanking him profusely for his good wishes and regretting that I couldn't accept them in the tangible form he was offering.)

To all of the advertisers I've had to turn away, I had a quick, simple reply:  Thank you, but we are unable to accept material of a religious or anti-religious nature.

Does the discussion board I mentioned above qualify under either heading?

I've never liked the idea that atheism is a religion, since I only ever seem to hear it from people who insist that there's no such thing as a non-religious human being and therefore atheists should stop fooling themselves and just come to church, already.

On the other hand, atheism does occupy much the same space in a philosophical, intellectual, and even emotional sense that religion does.

But atheism isn't religion. It's the lack of religion. And non-religious does not mean anti-religious -- that's the whole point of my magazine.

But opposites do imply one another. Atheism as a concept isn't non-religious in the same sense that hand-crafted wooden toys are.

And I have (and want) readers who are religious, but are nevertheless secular homeschoolers. How would an advertisement like this speak to them?

I don't mean that I'm worried about flack. I'm ruffling feathers just by having a magazine called Secular Homeschooling. Only yesterday I saw a blog that reproduced the Wish List in its entirety. The blogger said she hoped her readers would enjoy the list and get a good laugh out of it, as she did. She added that, for the record, she never has and never will buy or read SHM. I guess it's okay to steal from godless heathens, and use their work to try to ramp up traffic to your own site, as long as you scrape your shoes thoroughly afterwards.

I've already offended her, and she even likes my writing. There are plenty of readers I will never win over. I'm resigned to that.

But I'm interested in what the readers I have, or might have someday, think of all this.

Your thoughts?