Protect Status from Hate Crimes for Religions, Yet Not for Atheists?

Religions interestingly, were included as a protected status under hate crimes laws. Provocateurs attacking religious people with bias rather than simply hate and anger need be mindful of their actions plainly. I wonder though about atheists; if they are regarded as a religion then they too have a protected status- hence it would be illegal or rather a hate crime for a clan of people dressed as hooded big birds to burn Darwin's Origin of the Species on the lawn of prominent prosyletizers of godlessness on a dark and stormy night with a full moon breaking through foreboding clouds. Good historians might be able to attack various points of religious history, and good theologians might point out some interesting facts, yet it would probably be the uneducated that would most attack people of faith with the vigor of destruction.