I've looked at life from both sides now

Are atheists persecuted in US society for their anti-god views? Or are the very religiously devout the ones facing more public disdain?

This article says "Yes".

Atheists constantly remind us that they cannot be elected president. But what about the deeply, openly religious, those who express their religious devotion through anything more than anodyne ceremony? Yes president Bush can ask the country to pray. But we cannot picture Eugene McCarthy, who led his supporters in the Catholic rosary, winning office either. Atheists may complain that Americans think it rude to say, baldly, “There is no God.” But Americans find it just as rude to say, “There is only one true, holy, and apostolic Church, outside of which there is no salvation.” Or, “there is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet.”

It's interesting, and sad, that many Americans are more willing to claim that global warming is absolutely true than to agree that God exists and He has told us how to obey and serve Him. The article points out that some high-profile men identifying themselves as religious leaders don't actually teach religious doctrine. Instead, they teach "spirituality" without the potentially distressing burden of real obedience to real rules laid down by the real God. The general consensus of society is that believing anything in the religious realm that carries the necessary corollary that someone else's beliefs are wrong, is completely out of line.

I don't quite get the value of belief in a god who more closely resembles a genie in a bottle than the all-powerful Creator who reveals Himself in nature as well as in His Word, the Bible. How can a god who conforms to the preferences of modern society stand as the Creator, Guide and Savior to all societies at all times? There can be few standards that survive that kind of malleability. It makes God servant instead of master.

As for the atheists... this article inadvertently supports the understanding that committed atheists are following their own anti-god, and as such themselves are "religious", albeit not spiritual.