The Secular Coalition for America will hold a “strategic summit” conference this weekend in Washington (I will be one of the featured speakers) and this seems an appropriate moment to ask why Americans with a secular orientation—whether they call themselves atheists, agnostics, freethinkers or simply refuse to join any church—do not possess political influence commensurate with their growing numbers.

The exact number of Americans whose values—especially regarding public affairs—are largely secular is open to debate but no one disputes that this is the fastest-growing “religious” demographic in the nation. Estimates range from a low of 12 percent by the Pew Research Center. to a high of 20 percent by the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at Trinity College.

But there is no question that the ranks of the nonreligious have doubled during the past 25 years and that secularization is spreading most rapidly among Americans under 35. Nor is this trend likely to change. Contrary to popular myth, people do not become more religious as they age: the reason why those over 65 are more religious than younger Americans is not that the old have “seen the light” but that they are more likely to have been raised in a strong faith tradition and been religiously observant throughout their lives.

The American population is still overwhelmingly Christian but by any estimate, secular Americans make up a much larger segment of the public than any religious minority. Nevertheless, secularists do not begin to exert the influence wielded by religious organizations—whether they represent small minorities like Judaism or or large Christian denominations. If one accepts the 20 percent estimate, for example, the number of Americans with a secular orientation is not far below the number of Catholics. Nevertheless, the idea of offering the same respect to a secular organization as, say, to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops would be considered ludicrous by most politicians—even though the bishops do not speak for all Catholics any more than one secular organization speaks for all of the nonreligious.

To date, the Obama administration has proved a huge disappointment to advocates for strict separation of church and state—one goal that unites secularists of every political persuasions. Candidate Obama talked a good game about ending the Bush administration’s most egregious violations of church-state separation (such as the dispensing of federal funds to faith-based organizations that engage in religious hiring discrimination) but he has done little to make good on his promises. As journalist Sarah Posner notes in the most recent issue of the quarterly Conscience, Obama’s response to hiring discrimination was simply to encourage churches to set up separate nonprofit to receive federal money—as if that resolved the basic constitutional issue.

It is particularly difficult to define secular in a political context because there are many religious believers who hold essentially secular views about the role of government. Conscience, which contains outstanding analyses by numerous Catholic and non-Catholic authors of the administration’s shortcomings on church-state issues, is published by Catholics for Choice. The organization—though denounced many times by members of the American Catholic hierarchy—consists of Catholics who disagree with the church’s stance on reproductive rights and with its attempts to pressure lawmakers to write anti-choice language into as many pieces of legislation as possible.

Such Catholics hold essentially secular views about government polices concerning birth control, abortion, sex education, anti-AIDS efforts, and faith-based initiatives—and that is why the bishops disapprove of them. A secular fiscal conservative, who might well disagree with the views of liberal Catholics about economic justice, would agree with them on many cultural and church-state separation issues.

The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State (and an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ), writes in the same issue of Conscience , “Sadly, it may be safe to conclude that although the president may have been well-regarded as a professor of constitutional law in Chicago, he has since then had some significant memory loss on subject matter from the textbooks he undoubtedly once used.”

At the state level, assaults on separation between religion and government have moved into high gear since right-wing Republicans made enormous gains in the mid-term elections in state legislatures and governors’ offices. The most significant right-wing efforts, which will be addressed in this column in the next few weeks, involve attempts to Christianize the history curriculum in public schools; an intensified campaign to inject the teaching of creationism into science classes, and further restrictions on both abortion and birth control services.

The reason why secular groups have little influence in states dominated by Christian fundamentalists is mathematically obvious but the question of why secularists are largely ignored in Washington, by a president for whom they voted overwhelmingly, is more complicated.

First, the calculus of a politician like Obama is that whatever he does, he will continue to receive a huge share of the avowedly secular vote and that he can only lose the votes of much-touted “independents”—some of whom just might be religious—if he makes good on his old church-state promises.

Second, secular organizations (with the notable exception of foundations financed by rich right-wing donors) don’t have anything like the money that pro-religion lobbies, particularly Protestant fundamentalists, have. Religious Americans give more to nonprofits than secular Americans do. They even give more to secular causes. The stingiest Americans, by the way, are secular conservatives. They not only oppose government help for the poor but are apparently opposed to opening their own pocketbooks—even to promote their own views and, presumably, contribute to public enlightenment.

Third, no secular organization can affect the daily lives of its members and sympathizers to the degree that churches can. This is partly about money and partly about the social pressure (in a good as well as a bad sense) that binds church members together as a community. The Secular Coalition, Freedom from Religion Foundation, Center for Inquiry Transnational, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and many other groups are all working to uphold reason in public life, influence lawmakers and educate the public about secular values. I respect the work of all of these groups, but any of them could disappear tomorrow and their disappearance would not affect my everyday life—except that there would be one less voice upholding the values I hold dear.

Finally, no secular group can claim special authority in trying to persuade secular Americans to support a particular position. The Ayn Randian atheists are never going to convince me that it is a social evil for government to redistribute a certain amount of wealth, and I am never going to convince them that without government social welfare programs, American society would be in a much worse mess than it is. Right-wing churches, however, can and do tell their members that God—surely the ultimate special authority—wants them to vote for economic conservatives and candidates who are anti-choice and anti-gay.

Liberal religion too has the God card to play. A devout liberal Christian may ask herself, “What would Jesus do?” before making a decision about a political issue. I do not ask myself, “What would Richard Dawkins do?”—although when it comes to matters of education and science, he certainly is more of an authority than Jesus. Religious liberals have great influence within the Democratic party and Obama has cast his lot with them rather than with secularists.

Does this mean that groups like the Secular Coalition can never hope to increase secular influence in the public square? Of course not. One of the vital functions of secular organizations is not only to bring important secular causes to the attention of their members but to keep hounding the general news media to pay attention to such issues. Secular organizations are getting better at this—especially about bringing the attention of the national media to news, such as state efforts to Christianize the teaching of history, that represents a broader pattern rather than an isolated, parochial phenomenon.

But more effort is needed. Many national secular organizations have state and local branches. In the 2012 elections, I’d like to see those branches doing what churches do: provide rides to the polls for people who might have trouble getting out to vote on their own. Repeated polling shows that the majority of secularists in the United States are economic and social liberals, so a campaign to get out the secular vote will generally produce more support for liberal candidates. When secularists on the political right—who are generally affluent enough not to need a ride to the polling place—vote for conservatives, they have to swallow obeisance to religion along with policies that favor the richest Americans.

At this point, though, secular liberals have to swallow the equally bitter pill of voting for politically liberal candidates who shudder at the very word “secular” and cozy up to the faith-based pork barrelers. Until secular Americans can demonstrate strength at the polls, politicians will continue to throw us rhetorical crumbs—as Obama did when he cited the rights of “nonbelievers” in his inaugural address—and forget us until the next time an election looks too close to call.