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Guest Post ~ “We’re Taking Back Our Nation!” by Hrafnkell

Posted by on Dec 15, 2009 in God's Own Party? | 53 comments

Guest Post ~ “We’re Taking Back Our Nation!” by Hrafnkell

Another powerful Guest Post! These are so very much appreciated. They are thought provoking, passionate and offer diverse voices rather than just hearing from me. I thank you all…and encourage more of you to submit. This is a venue for us all and I welcome you to participate. The anchor point of this site is to passionately defend the separation of church and state, which leads us right into this article submitted…

by Hrafnkell Haraldsson…

Middle AgesIt is difficult at times to believe that this is the twenty-first, and not the thirteenth, century. The behavior of the Religious Right on these shores is more like that of the Church in the Middle Ages than that of citizens of a Nation founded upon the principles of the European Enlightenment.

A case in point is that of Cecil Bothwell, elected as a member of the Asheville, N.C., City Council. There were no campaign irregularities, no sex scandals or bribes or illegal donations. Yet there is a movement afoot to keep him from his seat after being duly – and legally – elected by the voters.

Article 6, Section 8 of the North Carolina Constitution reads: “The following persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God.”

Mr. Bothwell is an avowed atheist.

Mr. Bothwell does believe in his community, but some in his community don’t believe in him. He is the dreaded Canaanite lurking in the mythical community of the covenant.

H.K. Edgerton has threatened to file a lawsuit in state court against the city of Ashville. He wants to challenge Bothwell’s appointment to the City Council.

Because Mr. Bothwell is an atheist.

“My father was a Baptist minister. I’m a Christian man. I have problems with people who don’t believe in God.”

Edgerton is a former local NAACP president and founder of Southern Heritage 411, an organization that promotes the interests of black southerners. He is also, apparently, ignorant of Article VI of the Constitution of the United States of America – a Nation of which North Carolina is still a part.

This seems to be a lesson the Religious Right gets wrong more often than not. Mr. Edgerton does not seem to understand that he has a right to have problems with people who don’t believe in his god. What he does not have a right to do is to act upon that disapproval.

Because Mr. Bothwell has a right to not believe in Mr. Edgerton’s god. The US Constitution says so.

Edgerton is not alone, of course. The Raw Story tells us the head of a conservative weekly newspaper says city officials shirked their duty to uphold the state’s laws by swearing in Bothwell. David Morgan, editor of the Asheville Tribune, said he’s tired of seeing his state Constitution “trashed.”

Some of us are tired of seeing our national Constitution trashed and used as toilet paper. After eight years of abuse of that precious document by the Bush Administration, some of us have had enough.

The provision in the North Carolina Constitution was included when the document was drafted in 1868 and wasn’t revised when North Carolina amended its constitution in 1971.

The US Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787, by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and ratified by conventions in each U.S. state in the name of “The People”.

Including North Carolina.

The problem for Mr. Edgerton is that Article VI of the Constitution says this about religious tests to hold office:

(Section 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.

Thus, the provision in the North Carolina Constitution finds itself trumped by the US Constitution.

This has happened before, in Maryland in 1961. And as Ilana Stern of Americans United for Separation of Church and State observes, “the courts have made it abundantly clear that religious tests violate the separation of church and state.”

And we all remember the case during the 2008 elections when Kay Hagan was called “Godless” by her opponent, Elizabeth Dole. Significantly, Kay Hagan is a Democrat. More significantly still, Kay Hagan is a senator from North Carolina. Ms. Hagan’s crime? Dole accused her of attending a fund-raiser hosted by a founder of the Godless Americans, a group that advocates the total separation of church and state.

Separation of Church and State. That thing our Founding Fathers gave us in the Constitution.

The implication of course, is that if you don’t believe in God, you’re not fit to hold office. Which brings us back to Mr. Bothwell.

statute_for_religious_freedomIt’s strange that a group that has tried so hard to co-opt our Founding Fathers, to turn them all into Bible-toting Christians, ignores – or intentionally forgets – that Thomas Jefferson’s proudest achievement was not the Declaration of Independence but the Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom, which states:

Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

When those on the Religious Right invoke Thomas Jefferson’s name and memory, they profane it, and insult everything he stood for. And when they rally around an unjust cause like this, they shit not only on him, but on our Constitution and on the very foundations of American democracy.

Ilana Stern says that Bothwell himself seems to think that this controversy “could make for a very interesting court case,” but, she goes on to say, “he is wrong.”

That case has already been heard, and a decision has been rendered. The state of the law is clear: Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Secular Humanists and Agnostics alike are all entitled to hold public office.

It would be satisfying to see the forces of intolerance rebuffed here, at such a critical juncture. It is a foolish battle for them to fight – or we can at least make it so for them. It is important that we progressives, so often given to intellectualism over emotion, seize this opportunity to show some of the passion of Thomas Paine, or Patrick Henry – or Thomas Jefferson. Let us make Bothwell’s cause our own, and thus part of a bigger cause, that of religious freedom in this country.

We are standing at the ramparts, my friends, defending the wall of separation from the hordes outside and from their reckless hate. It is time to rally at that wall, to hold the line, and to shout down in outrage their ravenous and destructive cries. Let’s show some emotion; let’s shout them down, and let it be seen that our outrage is greater than theirs, and more just than theirs. Let’s show them true righteous indignation.

Let’s show them our outrage.

It’s time, my friends, to make it clear to them, in terms they will understand, that we will not give up our rights, and our freedoms and our liberties to tyranny. As Patrick Henry said, “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”

We’re throwing down the gloves. You can pick them up, but I will tell you this, it’s going to get messy, because you won’t like it when we get angry.

We’re taking back our Nation.

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