Atheist Campus Crusaders - a favorite topic

This post was in response to an article in Religion Dispatches, Are Atheists the New Campus Crusaders?
(I would provide a link to the article but for some reason the site isn't loading.)

With all due respect to my friends who are atheists but I have to point out that, IMO, these non-theist college students are displaying every bit the level of hypocrisy found in many campus religious outreaches. My issue has to do with unbelievers constant complaint that Christians try to shove their religion down their throats. And it's true, that happens a lot. So the academic atheist's response? Shove their anti-religion "beliefs" down theirs. This all looks like "atheist evangelism" to me. And that very concept, as far as I'm concerned, is contradictory to their insistence that they are NOT a religion.

But what bothers me the most is what atheist crusader Jesse Galef had to say: “I don’t think it’s unfair to say that groups like (the former Campus Crusade for Christ) are our cultural opponents.” CULTURAL OPPONENTS??? I have to say it again...CULTURAL OPPONENTS??????????????? I don't discount the fact that Christians' built-in predisposition to proselytize can often come off as strategic assaults (if you've ever foolishly invited Mormon missionaries into your home you'll probably understand what I mean). But atheist evangelism has, at it's core, nothing more than breaking down and eradicating beliefs that pose no threat to them and are of no harm to anyone secure in their faith. There seems to be a distinct "meanness" in their zeal to "convert". I can't help but see them as obsessively wanting to take away something from people they look down upon (and don't try to argue that they DON'T look down on believers, because the very idea that someone needs to be changed, needs to be re-wired and de-programmed is as condescending as the old folks in the front pews tossing out the tired "love the sinner, hate the sin" saw when pressed to discuss the possibility of gays in their church).

Cultural OPPONENTS??????????????? Why is that necessary? I'm not favoring believers over non-believers. I respect the right for everyone to hold dear the principles that give their lives meaning. Just because those principles aren't always the same with each person does not mean we have to go to war with those whose experience is not our own. And it doesn't mean that we have the right to demand that others adopt our principles because maybe we've somehow deluded ourselves into thinking that those we live by are better, are more rational, are more fulfilling than theirs. I'm not taking sides here, in this monumental CULTURE WAR (??????????????????????). I'd rather be a peacemaker. The only message I have to the atheist that has it's roots in religion is "do unto others as you would have them do to you". The only message I have for the believer that has atheistic overtones is "never stop exploring, always question". Those mandates are what I want to live by. And as much as I think those principle would benefit all of humanity I can't expect everyone in the world to adopt them.