“We’re expecting 30,000 people. This is the largest gathering of non-religious Americans in history,” said Lyz Liddell, director of the annual “Reason Rally.” (Note: this event is not affiliated with this website or our publisher, the nonprofit Reason Foundation.)

The aim this year was to show lawmakers and politicians that non-believers are quickly becoming a large voting bloc. Between 2007 and 2014, the number of Americans unaffiliated with any religion rose from 16 percent to 23 percent, the biggest growth spurt in both relative and absolute terms.

Larry Decker, executive director of Secular Coalition of America, met with more than 300 members in the Senate and House of Representatives. “We are going to promote secular values—values like freedom, equality, and inclusion,” says Decker, “and we hope to take those values and translate that into a strong voting bloc going forward.”