Op/Ed On NC No-Atheist Office Holders Law: "Atheists' Rights In Eyes Of Christians?"

[Hissyspit]

One of the authors of this guest editorial in The Greensboro News-Record is a long-time friend of mine.

http://www.news-record.com/content/2010/03/26/article/atheists_rights_in_eyes_of_christians

Atheists' rights in eyes of Christians?

SUNDAY, MARCH 28, 2010

By TOM ARCARO and ANTHONY HATCHER

"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
-- "Notes on the State of Virginia," by Thomas Jefferson, 1781

In the booming mountain town of Asheville, City Councilman Cecil Bothwell may have to step down. His crime? Serving the public while being an atheist.

There are six states with constitutions that hold that non-believers --atheists -- are not eligible to hold public office. These include Texas, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, Tennessee and North Carolina.

- snip -

How do people across North Carolina feel about a ban on atheists holding office? A recent Elon University poll found that a majority of those polled -- 65 percent -- oppose a requirement that people must believe in God in order to hold elected office.

On the other hand, that means more than a third said a belief in God is necessary to carry out the duties of public office.

Such religious attitudes in the public arena aren't new. In 2007, the First Amendment Center found that two-thirds of people polled agreed with the statement that, "the nation's founders intended the United States to be a Christian nation." More than half said they believed the Constitution established the country as a Christian nation.

They didn't, and it doesn't.

Currently, a vocal and politically conservative religious movement, akin to the Moral Majority of the 1980s, is using God-talk in public discourse to contradict the intent of the Founding Fathers. References to the divine are rhetorical ammunition utilized by Christian conservatives in the ongoing culture wars.

This attempt to divide the country into categories of religious vs. nonreligious is simplistic and discriminatory.

According to Beliefnet.com, conservative protestant Christians "are Bible-centered, viewing the Holy Bible as the final and only authority, the inerrant Word of God, interpreted literally as law." Could this belief in a higher law become a threat to the "Blessings of Liberty" (a phrase actually in the U.S. Constitution) of non-believers?

- snip -

There appears to be a special sort of prejudice reserved for those who choose to doubt the existence of God, even though their numbers are on the rise.

- snip -

It won't be long until non-believers recognize that, by voting as a bloc, they can change the landscape of local, state and even national elections -- utilizing the same political strategy as conservative Christians.

Atheists, like so many other scorned groups before them, will have to guard against a majority that seeks to strip them of constitutional freedoms. Love them or hate them, atheists have rights, too.

And is hatred really a Christian value?

Tom Arcaro is a professor of sociology and Anthony Hatcher is an associate professor of communications at Elon University. One is a Christian and the other is an atheist.

COMPLETE PIECE AT NEWS-RECORD LINK

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Wow! I had no idea there were laws like that....

I always thought of Asheville as one of the more progressive cities in the South.

[glinda]

2. Obviously their education curriculum is lacking in Philosophy, Social Studies, etc....

[jmowreader]

4. It is...

but the North Carolina constitution specifically establishes a religious test, which means the NC constitution is itself unconstitutional.

[SPedigrees]

6. and Massachusetts...well the state where I was born has let me down twice now in recent days.

Disappointing to learn that a state here in New England (where atheism thrives) could have such an archaic law on the books. Probably dates back to Puritan days.

[Larkspur]

10. Didn't Massachusetss also have a law that prohibited the practice of witchcraft until recently?

I thought it was changed in the 1990's. But I remember it was a relic from the Puritan days.

[HuckleB]

3. So there has been no Constitutional challenge on these laws to date?

Yikes!

:evilfrown: :wtf: :grr:

[Nikki Stone1]

5. Massachusetts? Really?

Wow.

[Zhade]

7. Small but important note: we do not choose to doubt.

We simply do not buy into the unsupported claims of religion.

[NAO]

8. That is unconstituional (article 6) and should be struck down

That is an outrage and it should be struck down.

Article Six of the United States Constitution

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

The Freedom From Religion Foundation works on these type of cases and has a very high success rate, even when the issue is not as clear cut as this one.

Freedom From Religion Foundation
http://www.ffrf.org

[ddeclue]

9. Those laws clearly violate the 1st and 14th Amendments and have no force or effect in law.

[usregimechange]

11. SCOTUS precident makes all of this go away, a unanimous decision in 1961

[Hissyspit]

12. That's in the article. People are clearly not reading it in its entirety.

[RainDog]

13. it is okay if someone believes in Zeus?

or Yahweh or Allah?

I mean, does it have to be someone who believes in the protestant idea of god, or catholic or mormon or hindu or buddhist...

how defined is this law?

and, while the law is entirely unconstitutional, it would seem, since it is directly counter to the "no religious test for office" part of the constitution, I just wonder if someone who believed in the FSM could get elected.

[BrklynLiberal]

17. and what about.....

[Clyde39]

14. I live in Asheville and have been following this

Here are some comments from our local newspaper:

Legal experts say a lawsuit would stand little chance because the state rule is trumped by the U.S. Constitution, whose Article VI disallows any religious test for political office. But the federal protections don't necessarily spare atheist public officials from spending years defending themselves in court.

Provisions like North Carolina's tend to stay on the books because lawmakers would rather not spend time weeding out outdated laws, said Duke University Law School professor Joseph Blocher.

“I mean, there are state laws against spitting in the street,” he said. “Why spend the time?”

[upi402]

15. I had no idea ther were laws like that either

What country is this, Christian Taliban Jesusland?

[struggle4progress]

16. "Cecil Bothwell may have to step down"? That's just horseshit!

Bothwell's been on the Asheville council for months now. Aside from a handful of crazies, like black neo-confederate H.K. Edgerton, nobody really cares

I'll agree that Art. VI Sec. 8 of the current NC Constitution is ridiculous. It's also been inoperative for decades. Changing it requires 3/5 of both chambers of the General Assembly, followed by voter ratification. So any attempt to change it will be an invitation to endless wingnut posturing in an election year. The situation will be different, of course, once we have a number of atheists in public office