David Niose

David Niose
David Niose speaking at the 2012 American Humanist Association conference.
Born	(1962-08-20) August 20, 1962 (age 54) Concord, MA
Occupation	Attorney, Author, former President of the American Humanist Association and Secular Coalition for America

David Niose (born August 20, 1962) is an attorney, author, and activist who has served as president of two Washington-based national organizations, the American Humanist Association and the Secular Coalition for America. In these positions he has initiated and pursued various advocacy efforts—legal, political, and public communications—on behalf of secularism. The American Humanist Association promotes humanism and defends the rights of humanists and other non-theistic Americans, and the Secular Coalition for America is a lobbying and advocacy group for non-theistic Americans.

Niose was born in Concord, Massachusetts. He majored in journalism at Boston University, where he graduated with a B.S. in 1984. He graduated cum laude from Suffolk University Law School in 1990. Admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1990, he opened his own law office in 1993.

Niose joined the American Humanist Association board of directors in 2005. He served two terms as president of the AHA, before becoming president of the Secular Coalition. In January 2014 he left the presidency of the Secular Coalition for America to become legal director of the American Humanist Association.

Upon joining the AHA board in 2005, Niose helped develop and launch a national advertising campaign promoting humanism in 2005, one of the first national ad campaigns by a secular group in America. The campaign included a series of full-page ads in several national magazines. As AHA president Niose oversaw several more major advertising campaigns which have included national television, radio, billboards, and public transit. These efforts have since been replicated by other secular groups. In late 2011 the AHA launched a $200,000 holiday billboard campaign, placing advertisements in 7 different cities, which included a billboard reading "Yes, Virginia, there is no god.".

In 2007 Niose initiated a contest sponsored by the Secular Coalition for America that resulted in Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) becoming the first member of Congress to openly identify as an atheist. As AHA president Niose urged President Obama to decline the honorary presidency of the Boy Scouts until their policy to exclude atheists is changed. Mormon, United Methodist and Roman Catholic churches are the largest sponsors of scout units across the country. He also has been highly critical of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, initiating letters from the AHA to incoming members of Congress in 2013 and 2015 discouraging them from joining the caucus. Responding to the first of the two letters in an interview on Fox News, Prayer Caucus founder Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA) called the AHA letter "unprecedented" and accused the AHA of being among "extremist groups" that "want to make sure they censor and shut down anything related to faith." After the first letter was sent, CPC membership declined from 104 to 89.