Politics, religion, and atheism in North Carolina are coming to a head. Cecil Bothwell, atheist, is soon to be seated as a City Council member in North Carolina. However, there is a problem: Under North Carolina's constitution politicians who deny the existence of God are barred from holding office. Opponents of Cecil Bothwell are using that law to argue he should not be seated as a City Council member.
Bothwell, who prefers the term "post-theist" to atheist, never made a secret about his atheism. Nor did his political opponents. Indeed, fliers mailed before the election criticized Bothwell over his atheism and his book, “The Prince of War,” which denounces evangelist Rev. Billy Graham for pushing what Bothwell says is a theocratic agenda.
Federal courts have ruled religious tests for public office are unlawful under the U.S. Constitution. While Article 6, section 8 of the North Carolina state constitution says: “The following persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God”; this will not stand the scrutiny of a federal court.
What is remarkable is that such a provision found its way into the state constitution at all. The presence of such a requirement is a reminder of a religious oppression that continues to this day.
While the provision is clearly unconstitutional, and more to the point un-American, there will still be those who support such a requirement. There is a dangerous minority of Americans, Christian fundamentalists that represent an American Taliban working for a Christian America, a Jesus theocracy that would break the hearts of our founding fathers.
Comments
This will eventually come down to money, not God.
How much do they want to sink into defending an old law that everybody in the modern day can agree is flawed?
x
God bless North Carolina, amen!
Does the Stone-Man actually believe half the stuff he writes, one has to ponder this thought.
I doubt the founding fathers would want Mikey speaking for them. I seriously doubt they ever envisioned an America where the government controls almost half of the economy and promises to provide everything to everybody, where the rich would be expected to pay more, guns are outlawed and those who chose too have the right to sit around smoking dope while other people work to pay for their lazy life styles. oh yeah, I wonder what Thomas Jefferson would have to say about abortion.
Hey Mikey I know how you progressives want to rewrite or deny history but weren't most of the founding fathers Christians. I don't believe many of them were atheists, jews, muslims, hindus, satanists, scientologists etc.
Michael, lots of states have constitutional bans on atheists holding public office, including my home state of Texas. No one bothers to go back and clean up unenforceable language in state constitutions and laws; they're just ignored from then on. This NC story is a non-issue.
Because if you DONT clean up these old laws, in the future, propaganda machines and short term memory can rear it's ugly head. This current, all be it, not the first theocratic push, started in the 70s with Falwell and the "Moral" Majority. He, and the theocrats hijacked the Republican party and depended on the growing Constitutional ignorance of the populous.
These falsehoods sold about history can only be marginalized by vigilance.
QUOTE WARD CLEAVER:
"where the rich would be expected to pay more,"
Stop your whiny crybaby "Poor Daddy Warbucks" garbage. NO ONE is suggesting a Soviet Union state. But to say that the founders wanted an economic state where corporate anarchy ruled and the rich could get away with murder, IS ABSURD!
No one wants to take your mansion from you crybaby, nor should they. But you CANT complain when those at the top treat Wall Street like a casino and nickle and dime the public in every aspect of their lives, and act shocked when they want protection.
IF the rich want protection from government intrusion, the BEST WAY to keep them out of your face, is TO DO THE RIGHT THING ON YOUR OWN, and stop pretending that everyone is a loser if they don't make it to your class.
I am not against wealth. I am against jadedness and greed.
EVEN Warren Buffet finds it sad that his own secretary pays a higher tax rate than he does. THE RICH CAN AFFORD IT, don't lie and say they cant. THEY CA
We've got the American Jesus... See Him On The Interstate!!
*Sing it with me!*
Hey Mikey,
The founders were not Falwell conservitives. Many were deists. When Washington was asked about a brick layer to build Mt Vernon, he said in his letter that he didn't care what label they were, including Muslim or atheist.
Jefferson, a deist, equated the virgin birth and death of Jesus as being in the same category as Minerva being born out of the brain of Jupiter.
JOHN ADAMS sighed INTO LAW "Treaty of Tripoly" article 11 "As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion"
THEY WERE FOR FREEDOM OF RELIGION, NOT RELIGIOUS MONOPOLIES OF POLITICAL POWER......THUS......"NO RELIGIOUS TEST".
The First Amendment was not an entitlement law asserting a monopoly of the drivers seat to only Christians. OTHERWISE it would have been wise for them to mention Jesus in the oath of office.
When did Washington say that? What letter was that? Did Washington also see a UFO? I saw Washington wrote a letter that all atheists are rejected losers. Now see how easy that is....
From Maryland's Constitution.
"Art. 36. That as it is the duty of every man to worship God in such manner as he thinks most acceptable to Him, all persons are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty; wherefore, no person ought by any law to be molested in his person or estate, on account of his religious persuasion, or profession, or for his religious practice, unless, under the color of religion, he shall disturb the good order, peace or safety of the State, or shall infringe the laws of morality, or injure others in their natural, civil or religious rights......"
"....nor ought any person to be compelled to frequent, or maintain, or contribute, unless on contract, to maintain, any place of worship, or any ministry; nor shall any person, otherwise competent, be deemed incompetent as a witness, or juror, on account of his religious belief; provided, he believes in the existence of God, and that under His dispensation such person will be held morally accountable for his acts, and be rewarded or punished therefor either in this world or in the world to come.
Nothing shall prohibit or require the making reference to belief in, reliance upon, or invoking the aid of God or a Supreme Being in any governmental or public document, proceeding, activity, ceremony, school, institution, or place."
YET Maryland prohibits God from the schools EVEN THOUGH IT IS SPECIFICALLY mentioned that the prohibition is prohibited.
Mikey, look at your own state's Constitution and it probably has the same thing in it.
Follow up on Baucus, D
"Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, gave a nearly $14,000 pay raise to a female staffer in 2008, at the time he was becoming romantically involved with her, and later that year took her on a taxpayer-funded trip to Southeast Asia and the Middle East, though foreign policy was not her specialty."
Put down the bagel and pick up a history book. The US is a federal republic. The US Constitution applies to the federal government.
Brian37 You seem so agitated, sorry if I offended you with my opinion. I suggest you mediate for a while, say a prayer, ask God to help you through your anger at people who have attained a measure of success.
Here is a story that will certainly make Mikey crap his drawers.
"It's been the year of the gun in Tennessee. In a flurry of legislative action, handgun owners won the right to take their weapons onto sports fields and playgrounds and, at least briefly, into bars.
A change in leadership at the state Capitol helped open the doors to the gun-related bills and put Tennessee at the forefront of a largely unnoticed trend: In much of the country, it is getting easier to carry guns.
A nationwide review by The Associated Press found that over the last two years, 24 states, mostly in the South and West, have passed 47 new laws loosening gun restrictions.
Among other things, legislatures have allowed firearms to be carried in cars, made it illegal to ask job candidates whether they own a gun, and expanded agreements that make permits to carry handguns in one state valid in another."
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091211/ap_on_re_us/us_looser_gun_laws
"• Arizona, Florida, Louisiana and Utah have made it illegal for businesses to bar their employees from storing guns in cars parked on company lots.
• Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, South Carolina and Virginia have made some or all handgun permit information confidential.
• Montana, Arizona and Kansas have allowed handgun permits to be issued to people who have had their felony convictions expunged or their full civil rights restored.
• Tennessee and Montana have passed laws that exempt weapons made and owned in-state from federal restrictions. Tennessee is the home to Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, the maker of a .50-caliber shoulder-fired rifle that the company says can shoot bullets up to five miles and is banned in California."
"The NRA boasts that almost all states grant handgun permits to people with clean criminal and psychological records. In 1987, only 10 states did. Only Wisconsin, Illinois and the District of Columbia now prohibit the practice entirely."
Yeah with the recent shooting in Times Square and the woman mowing down that intruder in OK with a shotgun, you would have thunk da Stone-Man would have regurgitated another anti-gun piece.
The government is WE THE PEOPLE and in any election that would mean the majority OF THE PEOPLE. SINCE AN OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF 75-80% of Americans identify themselves as Christian then it would only stand to reason that any true representative of the people would be someone who believes as they do: A belief in Christ. Over half of those are Evangelicals. Atheist are less than 1%.Secularist/Atheist(basically the same thing)engage in Christian bashing while Christians relinquish their rights little by little. There is no such Constitutional law of Separation of Church &State which only refers to the Treaty of Tripoli,Art.11. Articles 10-12 are written in Arabic and the translation is often debated anyway.The intent of that wording was only to assure them that we as a nation would not be imposing any religious law in trade that would be in conflict with their Islamic law. Jefferson a deist did not want any law that would prohibit him from expressing his questioning of religious faith.
The majority of America's population is not black, but we have a black president. Christians certainly can vote for a Christian. But that Christian voted in cannot legislate their religion as public law.
A Christian CAN also vote for a Muslim or Jew or Atheist.
My point is that voting based on a party or a label is STUPID, we should be beyond that as a nation. A majority voted for Bush and his Christianity didn't make him a good president.
There is only one reason we should vote for someone. We should educate ourselves on the candidates, and vote based on the one(regardless of label) vote for the one we think will do the best job.
Right Brian37 how many people voted for Obama just because he was BLACK, he certainly had no experience or anything that he had done in his 143-day senate career. 95% of all blacks were said to have voted for Obama, it was probably 99.9%. How many suck-up libtarded whites voted for Obama just to prove they weren't all my God a RACIST. What a joke!
Suddenly, the GPT, Gay Porn Terrorist, acknowledges the Constitution, which you don't seem to mention much when you're railing against the parts you don't like. I think the founding fathers' hearts would be broken if they had foreseen the emergence of a GPT, Gay Porn Terrorist as a "friend" of constitutional freedoms.
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