Pissing off the base is never a good idea.
Via Politico:
God has returned to the Democratic Party platform, a move some atheists say is a step backward in tolerance for nonbelievers.
“We’re disappointed,” Teresa MacBain, spokeswoman for American Atheists, told POLITICO. “What appeared to be a bold move by the Democrats to be inclusive has been pulled away. It sends a mixed message. Many, many people who are nonbelievers fall in the lines of the Democrats.” […]
But Lauren Anderson Youngblood, spokeswoman for the Secular Coalition for America, told POLITICO that America’s founding fathers wanted separation of church and state.
“This is one of our core founding principles — the idea of separating religion and government,” she said.
Other atheists were equally critical of the reversal.“Belief in God is a personal choice and there’s no reason to include reference to one faith or one system of belief in a platform designed to represent a large, far-from-monolithic party,” Hemant Mehta, aka Friendly Atheist, wrote on his Patheos blog. “What a mess.”