Chris Gahagan's old tweets criticizing organized religion are being used against him

Chris Gahagan is running for a position on the Kansas City Council in Missouri, but his old tweets about atheism may get in the way of that.

Gahagan has a stellar résumé for someone running for public office. He spent decades serving as general counsel for a local school district. He served on the Northland Regional Chamber of Commerce and was selected to be on the Clay County Constitutional Charter Commission (to revise and update rules for local government). Last fall, he announced that he would run for city council.

This past January, however, a conservative website called The Heartlander posted screenshots of several of his old tweets under a now-deleted account. (Other allies have tagged Gahagan under that old username, confirming it was his account.) In those tweets from 2017 and 2019, Gahagan held little back about his disdain for organized religion.

He said “religion is poison,” echoing the subtitle of the bestselling Christopher Hitchens book God Is Not Great. He wrote that the tax exempt status of churches needed to be challenged (fair!) and added, “Let’s put the crazies on the defensive.”

He also celebrated warm weather killing someone’s Christmas vibe (“Good! Death to Christmas!&rdquo, claimed “most religion is comedy,” and said, “If you have a religion, your brain is clearly not functioning.”

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: Some of those are over-the-top and, frankly, cringeworthy. There are plenty of intelligent people who are religious, and religious people aren’t automatically crazy. If you’re trying to criticize religion, there are sharper and smarter ways to do it. Painting everyone of faith with the same broad brush is a lazy approach that misses a lot of important nuance.

That said… so what? Religion is often harmful. A lot of religious institutions don’t deserve tax exemptions and openly break the rules that allow them to have those tax breaks. Religion played a huge role in vaccine denial (and mask opposition) during the worst of the COVID pandemic. And religious beliefs are pretty damn silly to everyone who’s not part of that particular faith.

These tweets seem better suited for an online atheist circa 2007—desperately attempting to be edgy—than a grown-ass adult more than a decade later. But the sentiment isn’t lost on me because I’ve been around online atheists my entire career. (Hell, I’m sure I’ve written plenty of regrettable things since 2007, and they’re all up online somewhere.)

Here’s what’s important: As a city council member, Gahagan wouldn’t be in a position to craft laws, much less take sides on culture war issues. Local governments are not where we typically hear religious (or non-religious) arguments for anything. Garbage pickup is garbage pickup. A pothole is a pothole. Your personal and political beliefs generally mean a lot less at the local level.

It’s also telling that Gahagan deleted that Twitter account before announcing his run for office. Whether he did it because it’s just a smart political move or because he feels differently these days, I don’t know. My views on a lot of religion-related issues have undoubtedly shifted since 2017, and I’m sure the same can be said for him. I’d love to know what he thinks about religion now.

More importantly, a responsible adult running for public office would hopefully set aside any personal beliefs in order to represent those who disagree. (When a transgender candidate won a State House seat in 2017, she was asked what she would say to her anti-trans opponent. Her response? “I don't attack my constituents. Bob is my constituent now.&rdquo

It’s one thing to trash religion when you’re just a lone wolf online, but as a city council member, you would represent religious people, and they need to be able to count on you to be their voice. Deleting his old tweets and making it clear that his personal opinions wouldn’t impact his ability to represent people of different faiths is a step in the right direction.

To that end, here’s what Gahagan posted on Facebook earlier this month: