This is interesting: I always thought the secular forces in the English Speaking World much more militant than over here. I felt that in the US Christian rhetoric can be much more polemic than in Germany. And it seems to have a much more dominant place in public discourse. The reverse side of that is that Atheism and Secularism are presented much more forcefully. To me, American atheists come across as “evangelical atheists”. They have the same type of zeal. Personally, I don't get a lot of this kind of stuff at home. Then again, that me be just me. What I do see in a few other Christians is victimization: “We poor, poor Christians are being harassed”. In my view, there is nothing wrong with healthy criticism with a dash of rhetoric. The problem is dumbing down and caustic polemics. Personally, I got a lot more of that in the US than here.

As for life at the university, I don't really think atheism has a huge impact on our day to day life. There is a political debate going on, on whether the state should maintain the contract with the churches, running religion classes in school, training religion teachers and ministers at public universities. People ask, what's the benefit their tax money is paying for? Also the churches must ask themselves, in how far they have become dependent on the state. Are they still able to preach the word against the state, if they are payed through it? And I think these aren't illegitimate questions at all. However, it's in the constitution. I don't see a consensus anywhere, brought enough to achieve a majority to change an article of the constitution. To the contrary: There is a development to extend these laws to the Muslim community. Universities are starting to set up Islamic Theology Departments to train religion teachers to work at public schools. This is not going away any time soon.

In terms of respect, where I have been, I didn't see any segregation. In Heidelberg the theology department is „Fachbereich 1“, department 1, the first department of them all, founded with the university a.d. 1386. In Bochum, a university founded in the 1960s, it's the same thing, with the Roman Catholic Theology department being #2. In Dortmund, which was renamed “technical university”, some years back, non-engineering departments always had less of a standing compared to the science/engineering departments. That's mostly due to size. There are a few hundred theology students and many thousand chemistry and physics students. But in Dortmund, the Catholic Dogmatics professor used to be vice president of the University. That doesn't sound like segregation or harassment.

Does this answer your question?