Conservatives threaten to sue city over atheist councilman

[depakid]

Source: Raw Story

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- Asheville City Councilman Cecil Bothwell believes in ending the death penalty, conserving water and reforming government - but he doesn't believe in God. His political opponents say that's a sin that makes him unworthy of serving in office, and they've got the North Carolina Constitution on their side.

Bothwell's detractors are threatening to take the city to court for swearing him in, even though the state's antiquated requirement that officeholders believe in God is unenforceable because it violates the U.S. Consititution. "The question of whether or not God exists is not particularly interesting to me and it's certainly not relevant to public office," the recently elected 59-year-old said.

Raised a Presbyterian, Bothwell began questioning Christian beliefs at a young age and considered himself an atheist by the time he was 20. He's an active member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Asheville and he still celebrates Christmas, often hanging ornaments on his Fishhook cactus.

<snip>

Bothwell ran this fall on a platform that also included limiting the height of downtown buildings and saving trees in the city's core, views that appealed to voters in the liberal-leaning community at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains. When Bothwell was sworn into office on Monday, he used an alternative oath that doesn't require officials to swear on a Bible or reference "Almighty God." That has riled conservative activists, who cite a little-noticed quirk in North Carolina's Constitution that disqualifies officeholders "who shall deny the being of Almighty God."

Read more: http://rawstory.com/2009/12/atheist-councilman/

[movonne]

1. I thought we were free..

[depakid]

6. Oregonians much more so than folks in other regions

Imagine what the reaction would have been to the Mayor of Silverton....

SILVERTON, Ore. - Silverton's openly transgender mayor is under fire for his choice of attire when he went to speak to a group of students. Silverton Together, a non-profit group that works with young people, filed a formal complaint and Mayor Stu Rasmussen is not happy that his wardrobe is under attack.

"Why are we even having this discussion? I'm an adult. I'll wear what I please," he said.

Ken Hector, President of Silverton Together, said the mayor violated the city's dress code when he spoke to a group of leadership students wearing a bathing suit top, a mini skirt and high heels. And he said three parents complained to him directly about the mayor's appearance.

"This was a business meeting pure and simple and it was not something on his free time," Hector said.

"Well, if they're going to be smart about it, they're going to look at the dress code and say, well, this is really obsolete now because it doesn't meet current conditions," he said. Parents we spoke with, whose kids attend the summer program, said the mayor should dress more professionally.

"I just believe, as any other person, they should dress modestly," one woman said.

http://www.katu.com/news/local/51532412.html

[Warpy]

14. We're only free if we're wealthy enough

and in the majority.

[New Dawn]

25. The "freest" theocratic plutocracy in the world.

[safeinOhio]

2. A Unitarian Universalist?

Damned church going free thinker could spoil everything.:sarcasm:

[Jamastiene]

4. Yeah, here in North Carolina, you have to be a rabid right wing fundamentalist

or they don't consider you "Christian" at all. They see me as the anti-Christ. I have no religion at all and say so. They really don't like non-Christians down here.

[Warpy]

15. People outside the south have no idea

just how strong those fundy chains are on the minds of people there.

It's frustrating and sad.

[Jamastiene]

18. In the Bible Belt, you see Theocracy in action.

The churches have a very STRONG influence on every business in the local Chamber of Commerce. If you don't play by the church's rules, you are toast. It's a fact of life in these areas. I guess that is why I am so "maladjusted" here.

[Mopar151]

41. It even scares some fundies...

I worked with a guy with a 4 year degree from Bob Jones University. Wife & child came along, they decided he should take a job in Greenville - similar th what he did in NH, but the cost of living is lower there. He showed up 3 years later, I asked "What brings you back?" "I wish to raise my children in my native culture!" He also told me that "If I never again see a geek in a fake leather jacket, driving a by-the-week Cadillac, who answers to Revrend, it'll be too soon."

[barbtries]

42. my son's getting ready to go to college next year

on one of the sample applications we looked at they actually asked the question "what church do you attend?" we're in NC too. that shocked me actually. i should add that the question did not appear on any of the applications we filled out.

And of all plagues with which mankind are curst,
Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst. Daniel Defoe

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.
Thomas Paine

I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in human beings. - Pearl S. Buck

[BlancheSplanchnik]

43. love these quotes. Fundamentalist ideologies ignore and even degrade actual lives

The reflected glory of upholding a punishing dogma overtakes its followers.

Here's a snip from Dr Daisaku Ikeda, president of the Buddhist organization, Soka Gakkai International, from his 2008 Peace Proposal, Humanizing Religion, Creating Peace (2008)

"Does religion make people stronger, or does it weaken them? Does it encourage what is good or what is evil in them? Are they made better and more wise-or less-by religion?" These are the questions we need to ask of all religions, including of course Buddhism, if we are to succeed in fully "humanizing" them.
http://daisakuikeda.org/main/peacebuild/peace-proposals/pp2008.html

another snip from 2008's proposal, which I think is powerful,

"Of particular concern is the fact that one response to this <global> disorder has been the appearance, in various locations and different guises, of a phenomenon that could be described as a slide toward fundamentalism. This is not limited to religious fundamentalism but is also evident in an excessive and unquestioning attachment to national or ethnic identity and to different political ideologies and "isms"; it certainly includes what might be termed the fundamentalism of market forces.

What is common to all of these is that abstract principles are given priority over living human beings, who end up becoming the captive servants of these principles. To borrow the metaphor of Simone Weil (1909-43), the tendency of various forms of fundamentalism to operate in this way can be likened to the workings of gravity, which pull down and degrade human beings and human society. This would seem to express a basic tendency within human beings--the readiness to turn our eyes away from ourselves, our own potentialities and responsibilities, to choose the easy way, the path of least resistance. "

[barbtries]

44. those are also great quotes

it isn't religion per se that bothers me - it's fundamentalism. and evangelism. it's a spiritual matter. i tend to lose respect for people who do not respect my personal choices in that aspect.

[Bitwit1234]

3. Wasn't Thomas Jefferson an Agnostic

Actually weren't most of the founding fathers against religion in the government.

[Goldstein1984]

9. Thomas Jefferson was a Unitarian

Or so most historians think. He did believe in a creator, which would qualify him at least as a deist (like Franklin), but Jefferson considered himself a Christian and attended services. He did not believe in the divinity of Jesus or in the Trinity. He edited the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) into a book he called "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth" (aka "The Jefferson Bible"). It was basically the four gospels with all of the miracles edited out.

Jefferson was the author of the Virginia Statute on Religious Liberty, which he considered a greater accomplishment that his presidency. He also coined the term, "Separation of church and state" in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Church.

He was an interesting fellow. He probably would have been an atheist is alive after Darwin, but who really knows?

[immoderate]

45. I think it was Adams who was Unitarian.

Jefferson, to my knowledge, never joined a Unitarian congregation. He was not a Christan by belief.

I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. They are all alike founded upon fables and mythologies. The Christian God is a being of terrific character -- cruel, vindictive, capricious, and unjust..."
Thomas Jefferson

--imm

[sharp_stick]

5. These assholes

remind me why I piss on the religion that I grew up with. I can handle most religious people but these fucking fundies make me nuts. I grew up in a fundie environment, now it's interesting that all the real fundies are dead and those of us left are agnostic or atheistic.

[havocmom]

7. Native Americans should have driven the Puritans back into the sea

Nothing but trouble.

[rosesaylavee]

37. Irony is...

the Unitarian Universalist historical tradition hails from the Puritans in Massachusetts Bay Colony. I know as I am a UU. :P

[Jamastiene]

48. Puritans were kinda mellow compared to some of the fundies

I've met here in NC.

[MineralMan]

8. Stupid assholes.

This was settled decades ago. The law is unconstitutional. That is all.

[Tempest]

10. The U.S. Constitution trumps the state law

The U.S. Constitution says religion cannot be used as a condition of holding office.

The SCOTUS has already ruled on this.

[kestrel91316]

12. "There shall be NO religious test......." is how it reads, IIRC.

[Libertas1776]

11. Good, let the A-holes make a commotion

that way, if there still is indeed a state law on the books that says an atheist cannot hold office, it will be STRUCK THE FUCK DOWN BY THE US CONSTITUTION.

[SkyDaddy7]

36. I agree that it should be struck down but...

I would not be shocked if it does not.

[BR_Parkway]

38. Not simply a law, it was written into NC's Constitution

[ismnotwasm]

13. I'm assuming they're also pissed

Because he's not Christian?

I mean he could believe in Kali, or Mithras, or Hecate or Cthulhu or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, would that make the any happier? Hmm?

Course not. Not only God, but the Right (or else) God.

Creepy.

[hayu_lol]

16. Jeez, they might organize and secede...

Oh wait, they already did that.

The NW is also loaded with fundies...many of them originally from the south. The mindset is very familiar in both places.

[ElboRuum]

17. When in doubt, get loud about something irrelevant.

It's the conservative way.

[gratuitous]

19. They won't file, it will cost them money

If they do file, they will lose.

However, if they continue to squawk ignorantly, there will always be some "news" outlet that will give them a mic, a camera and some air time. For free.

So, what do you think the conservative activists will do?

[DAMANgoldberg]

20. This will not work...

This story goes away on Monday. Asheville (a lovely place 120 mi W of where I am) will go on. And 880 The Revolution will still be worth listening to during the day!

[jobycom]

21. I hope so. That law is in many state constitutions, and it would be nice to finally see it ruled

unconstitutional.

Short history--southern states adopted new constitutions after the Civil War, and basically borrowed from each other, and many of them include a ban on atheists holding public office. In that era, the common legal opinion was that the federal constitution only applied to federal government and federal law. In this case, the forbidding of a religious test would only apply to federal jobs, for instance. The state constitution didn't have to follow the same laws unless the federal constitution specifically forbade something, like slavery, to the states.

Now of course the courts rule the opposite, that the states cannot violate a person's Constitutional rights no matter what the state constitution says, but no one has changed these state prohibitions. No one wants to challenge them because they would in essence ruin their own political chances, since it's rare that an atheist can win in the South while openly proclaiming they are atheist.

So these laws aren't enforced, but they are there, and the only way they are likely to be overturned is if the conservatives try to enforce them, in which case the courts can strike them down.

I was involved a little in trying to get a movement started in Texas to change this law here. It got nowhere. At my precinct cacaus when someone read a resolution to overturn the law, almost no one supported it. One of the precinct leaders said it sounded like something the Republicans would plant to make us look bad.

So let them push the case. They won't win, they'll just finally get a ruling that these laws are unenforcable.

[struggle4progress]

27. SCOTUS ruled it unconstitutional nearly fifty years ago -- in 1961

[jobycom]

30. Did not know that. Thanks. nt

[RedCloud]

22. Let them there religious folks be bitten first by rattlers to prove their faith!

Slip in a few hungry anaconda by "divine error" and Bothwell could be re-elected unanimously.

[DavidDvorkin]

23. Oh, those noisy, angry, pushy atheists!

If they'd just stay in the background, or at least keep their (non)beliefs to themselves, everything would be so much -- so much -- so much NICER!

Eventually, theists would come around to letting them participate in public life in an open sort of way. They just have to have patience and be better behaved.

[evilkumquat]

24. I've seen abstracts that prohibit blacks from owning property...

...in my neck of the woods way up here in northeastern Indiana.

That was a hell of a thing to come across while looking over the documents.

[Miss Authoritiva]

26. Just a waste of the city's money...

I realize these groups have an easy time in raising money to lodge lawsuits; however, the city has to spend money in contesting such suits. If I were a townsperson, I'd be really ticked. That's my property tax money they're wasting with a frivolous, grandstanding lawsuit that's just going to get tossed.

Oh, yeah: Bet these idiots rant on about tort reform, too.

[struggle4progress]

28. Not sure, but I think if they file a case without merit they can become responsible for

the defendant's attorney fees

And there's no real issue here: the law is long-settled

[and-justice-for-all]

29. Fuck those Cons and their invisible friends!!!

[rasputin1952]

31. From that pesky Constitution...the one the RWnuts love to "quote"...

Article 6, paragraph 3:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.


Odd how they only like the Constitution when a part might serve their purpose, but, just like religious texts, the rest is easily ignored.

[Swede Atlanta]

40. Agree but.....

I looked at that as well although as it relates to state officials the U.S. Constitution says "Members of the several State Legislatures and all executive and judicial officers". I think a case could be made that a city councilman is none of those. He is a member of the legislative branch of city government. I assume that the city has a mayor or city manager that serves the executive role and has an independent city judiciary. So interestingly enough, without judicial clarification on this matter, I wonder if the city council slips through this crack. I'm not saying for sure but think it is interesting that the founding fathers left out the legislative branch of jurisdictions lower than at a state level.

[ima_sinnic]

32. well, I'm mad because he's switched sides in the War on Christmas--traitor!

:rofl:

[CreekDog]

33. Those conservatives really hate lawsuits filed by others

:eyes:

[davidpdx]

34. A simple solution would be to pass a law making the opponents appear downtown in front of city hall

They would be required to drop trow and flogged a dozen times each for their bad behavior in front of the whole town..

[defendandprotect]

35. Even Newt Gingrich was trying to suggest a few years back, "no right not to believe in god" . ..!!!

In fact, that's democracy's highest privilege -- the right to free thought, free

conscience, free will --

All of it's been thoroughly trashed about by the right wing like everything else --

however . . . !!

[Swede Atlanta]

39. N.C. Constitution violates U.S. Constitution

Establishment jurisprudence in the 2nd half of the 20th century made clear that the Establishment clause applies both to the establishment of religion as well as irreligion.

As such this provision in the N.C. constitution would be deemed as promoting theistic religion (even though no specific denomination is mentioned) over irreligion by requiring any officeholder to be a theist.

If these political opponents push this I hope the ACLU takes up this case. While it would take a while to reach the U.S. Supreme Court, I think this is a clear violation. Now it would likely be a split decision with Alito, Scalia and Thomas seeing no problem with this but I think you would get a split decision against this state constitutional provision.

[n0nesuch]

46. ...and Christianity rears its ugly head.

The religion of bigotry.

[struggle4progress]

47. I'd guess it's more "attention seeking wacko seeks attention"

Search the forums. H.K. Edgerton is nuts

[caitxrawks]

49. .

I e-mailed him the day after this crap broke out and told him I supported him. He wrote me back and thanked me.