Fact: The United States is a secular republic, founded on Enlightenment principles - the same as Humanism.
The concepts at the base of this Republic were developed through the insights of the best thinkers of the western world since the Renaissance. They don't depend on the campfire tales of lost illiterate homeless wanderers in Middle East deserts in the Bronze Age.
The founders of this Republic were sound thinkers and careful planners. Humanists today are people in the forefront of standing for the core values of this great experiment called America. Free human beings, responsible to think and act, can govern themselves.
This is a direct repudiation of the vision of dependent humanity on its knees, begging for celestial rescue. Humanists, like the founders of this Republic, know that life is a do-it-yourself job.
James Madison (1751-1836) by Dr. James W. Prescott
A Memorial and Remonstrance (1784). This protest was delivered before the Commonwealth of Virginia in opposition to a bill introduced by Patrick Henry, December 1784, proposing "establishing a provision for Teachers of Religion". It is considered by scholars to rank with the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address. Some selected quotes:
1....The religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate.
3. It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties...Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?
From: George Seldes. The Great Thoughts.Ballantine Books. 1985. New York.