"American Family Assn." in a LATHER! Court rules atheism is a religion!

[Bluebear]

Contact: Kathryn Hooks,
for the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy, 662-844-5036 ext. 227

TUPELO, Miss., Aug. 19 /Christian Wire Service/ -- A federal court of appeals has ruled in favor of an inmate who claimed that Wisconsin prison officials violated his rights under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because they refused to allow him to create a study group for atheists.

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that prison officials erred because they “did not treat atheism as a ‘religion.’” The court said, “Atheism is religion, and the group that he wanted to start was religious in nature even though it expressly rejects a belief in a supreme being.”

Brian Fahling, senior trial attorney for the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy, described the court’s ruling as “a sort of Alice in Wonderland jurisprudence.”

“Up is down, and atheism, the antithesis of religion, is religion,” stated Fahling.

The Supreme Court has said that a religion need not be based on a belief in the existence of a supreme being. In the 1961 case of Torcaso v. Watkins, the Court described “secular humanism” as a religion.

Fahling pointed to today’s ruling as “further evidence of the incoherence of Establishment Clause jurisprudence.”

“It is difficult not to be somewhat jaundiced about our courts when they take clauses especially designed to protect religion from the state and turn them on their head by giving protective cover to a belief system, that, by every known definition other than the courts’ is not a religion, while simultaneously declaring public expressions of true religious faith to be prohibited,” Fahling said.

http://www.earnedmedia.org/afab0819.htm

[Walt Starr]

1. The funny thing about the christofascists and atheism

they want to call it a religion when it fits an argument they want to make about it, but the don't want atheism to be treated like any other religion in the eyes of the law.

[Richard Steele]

8. BINGO! They made up their own name for Atheism...

They call it "Secular Humanism",
and attack it as a RELIGION when it suits their purposes.
(I have sat in a pew, and heard long rants argueing that it is a RELIGION!)

But when they want to play the LEGAL game,
suddenly a person's moral convictions shouldn't be respected by the law,
because "they aren't a religion".

More lies, more self-contradictory bullshit...
more PROOF that today's "Religious Leaders" are the same
self-serving sociopathic con-men that they were 1000 years ago.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. This is actually a good thing for atheist.

In order to be protected by Title 8(?) you need to meet certain prongs. One of them is that the individual must have a real conviction for what he believes in. This is a big leap.

[Bluebear]

3. It certainly is. And the "Family Association" is in a tizzy.

Good.

[baldguy]

4. The problem here is that the chriso-fascists are bigots.

In order to give their puny little lives meaning they NEED someone to hate.

[getmeouttahere]

5. Ain't that the truth...

this is why BushCo must fight "evil" because you can never rid the world of ALL evil

[StClone]

6. Develop a Religion of Evolution!

That would put them knots!

[proud patriot]

7. LOL ...Right On

:D