Melody Hensley, the chief executive of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Center for Inquiry, says she knows closeted atheists in Congress and believes it would help immensely for some of them to come out. We had a near miss with Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) when she was elected a year ago, Hensley sighs. Although 10 other members of Congress declined to specify their religious affiliation, Sinema was the only one to list “none.” Atheist groups celebrated—prematurely, it turned out. Sinema’s office quickly issued a clarification: “Kyrsten believes the terms non-theist, atheist, or non-believer are not befitting of her life’s work or personal character.”

Hensley shared with me a Facebook exchange she had with Sinema shortly thereafter, in which Hensley told the congresswoman her statement seemed to denigrate atheism and that the statement seemed cowardly. Sinema replied that she would not use that language in the future but protested: “I am not a theist, nor am I a nontheist. I don’t like labels.”

Frank expressed a similar discomfort with labels in explaining why for all those years in Congress he never talked about his atheism. I think very highly of Frank, but I wasn’t convinced when he told me he stayed silent about it because it wasn’t relevant to policy. Coming out as gay was no more relevant, but he did that. Yet Frank did say something that changed my view of his stance. “Being Jewish complicated it for me,” he said, “because with all the anti-Semitism in the world, I didn’t want to look like I was separating from Judaism.” He told me that while we were speaking on the phone, he was looking at his desk, and there he saw both a Tzedakah box and a shofar, one given to him by a gay congregation. Being Jewish was part of his identity, even if he didn’t go to temple on Jewish holidays, and he was protecting that when he kept quiet about his atheism.