Lawsuit threatened over atheist city council member
by: Be Scofield on December 14th, 2009 | 5 Comments »
Did you know that seven states have laws barring atheists from holding political office? I learned this while reading about newly elected Asheville, NC councilman and atheist Cecil Bothwell — both he and the city may face a lawsuit because of his lack of belief in God. Article 6, section 8 of the NC state constitution reads, “The following persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any person who shall deny the Almighty God.” While constitutional experts say the law is not enforceable Bothwell may have to defend himself from civil lawsuits.
Bothwell is a Unitarian Universalist who celebrates Christmas and is not opposed to the council praying before its meetings. He even said he would join in by reading a quote or passage from a meaningful book. Yet the newly elected councilman is still facing criticism:
When Mr. Bothwell was sworn into office on Monday, he used an alternate oath that does not require officials to swear on a Bible or refer to “Almighty God.”
That has riled conservative advocates, who cite a little-noticed quirk in North Carolina’s Constitution that disqualifies officeholders “who shall deny the being of Almighty God.” The provision was included when the document was drafted in 1868 and was not revised when North Carolina amended its Constitution in 1971.
One opponent, H. K. Edgerton, is threatening to file suit against the city to challenge Mr. Bothwell’s swearing in. “My father was a Baptist minister,” Mr. Edgerton said. “I’m a Christian man. I have problems with people who don’t believe in God.” Mr. Edgerton is a local civil rights leader and founder of Southern Heritage 411, an organization that promotes the interests of black Southerners.
Growing up in a conservative Christian town I was taught to fear atheists and agnostics. Many believed (and still do) that they are a legitimate threat to society. This of course is the same mindset that drove the Catholic and Protestant Churches to torture and execute “heretics” for rejecting ecclesiastical authority or believing in only one God. Let’s not forget that Michael Servetus was burned at the stake in Calvin’s theocratic Geneva (and burned in effigy by the Catholic Church) for denying the Trinity. And by 1535 approximately 50,000 Anabaptists had been drowned and beheaded for among other things refusing to baptize infants.
The idea behind this fear mongering stems from an age old belief within orthodox Christianity that unless you are a “believer” you cannot be moral. And this has taken many forms, as many have been believers but just of the wrong variety. First, one can certainly ask, “Believer of which God?” I certainly don’t believe in the same God as orthodox Christians do. And H. K. Edgerton who is threatening to file suit against Asheville doesn’t believe in Zeus or Zoroaster. Does this make him an atheist? Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. believed in God but rejected the entirety of Christian doctrines including the god-like divinity of Jesus and reality of heaven and hell. I recently wrote about King’s interpretation of Christianity for Tikkun magazine. Many of the “founding fathers” — Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and perhaps even George Washington rejected the Christian doctrines but maintained a belief in God. Jefferson made his own Bible by cutting out any reference to the supernatural or angels and left out the miracles, resurrection and divinity of Jesus.
So who is a believer and what does the “Almighty God” refer to? And secondly, the argument that belief in God is necessary to be moral is not based in reality, but yet it is something I hear over and over again from Christians. All one has to do is look at how people who don’t believe in God are moral. But yet when watching debate after debate between Christians and atheists the same old line is given, “You can’t condemn something as wrong without God.” Even the progressive leader Rev. Al Sharpton makes this illogical argument (minute 35) when debating Christopher Hitchens. We should always be reminded that the Dalai Lama is an atheist and yet is one of the most revered spiritual and moral figures in the world. And so goes with many other Buddhists and non-theistic traditions. Again, orthodox Christians must explain how so much morality can be produced without a belief God.
In reality the idea that religious and/or God loving people have something to fear from atheists or agnostics couldn’t be further from the truth. It only creates a climate of antagonism and fear that makes atheists more susceptible to dehumanization and violence. The 2008 politically motivated murders at a Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Tennessee comes to mind.
As a God loving Unitarian Universalist minister in training I find the persecution of Bothwell a sad setback in the long struggle to separate Church and state. And most significantly it detracts from the legitimate work of the Asheville city council. The religious left (and right for that matter) should defend the freedom of religious expression in its many forms and speak out against this religious attack against an elected official. Unitarian Universalism is a religion with many different theological perspectives including atheist, humanistic and theistic. Given the legacy of violence and oppression against those who believed in the “wrong” God, let alone those who identify as atheists let us all stand in support for Cecil Bothwell. There are real problems in the world and religious affiliation or lack thereof is not one of them.
Be, doesn’t banning atheists amount to a religious test for public office? The “no religious test” clause of the US Constitution says:
“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.”
Do you know if any court case on behalf of an elected atheist has been fought on this basis, that it contradicts this clause?
This is an excerpt from the Asheville Citizens Time story on the subject. You might find it interesting.
http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20091214/NEWS01/312140021
“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.
In 1961, the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed that federal law prohibits states from requiring any kind of religious test to serve in office when it ruled in favor of a Maryland atheist seeking appointment as a notary public.
But the federal protections don’t necessarily spare atheist public officials from spending years defending themselves in court.
Avowed atheist Herb Silverman won an eight-year court battle in 1997, when South Carolina’s highest court granted him the right to be appointed as a notary despite the state’s law.”
I’m just encouraged to see this on TikkunDaily. I sweat a lot amongst even the spiritual left ever since I finally just admitted I’m an atheist. I thought it was tough converting to Judaism fifteen years ago (my Fundie father gave me all manner of grief and harassment–so much so I joined several Ex-Xtian support groups to deal with the chaos all the shunning by family and friends). No where you identify, someone of very limited consciousness always figures to put one over on ya and deliver a beat-down. Ugh.
I hope Cecil wins and keeps his seat.
If a public official must swear on a book, I think it should be Euclid’s book on geometry or a logic textbook. The most important thing is to have public policy based on reason.
Better yet, solemnly affirm that you will uphold the one meaningful sentence (second paragraph) of the Declaration of Independence, the foundation of our nation.
The Constitution is only the basis of our present usually dysfunctional form of government, with its preamble negating “the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of,happiness,” substituting “property” instead. Whatever the “pursuit of happiness” may be interpreted to mean, at the minimum it requires universal access to the necessities of survival: permanent shelter, adequate food and adequate nourishment. Everything else is secondary. What happened to the “freedom from want,” promised to all humankind by FDR in 1941?
Don’t bother to read the entire Declaration of Independence, most of which is simply a list of complaints by wealthy and powerful businessmen and plantation owners, which can be boiled down to one sentence: We elitists in the colonies can’t sit beside our peers in London.
An oath is either a curse or taking God’s name in vain, which even an atheist who has values would object to as indefensible disrdespect for those who believe otherwise.