 Despite polling showing that nonbelievers make up an increasingly large part of the population there is only one public atheist in all of the state legislatures across the nation.Few politicians have been willing to acknowledge their lack of belief in supreme beings, since such revelations have been considered "political suicide".On 20 September 2007, Pete Stark became the first nontheist United States congressman to openly acknowledge a lack of belief, joining the millions of Americans who have long kept their views secret for fear of discrimination in their communities.