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There are states where you technically can’t hold public office if you’re an atheist
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/07/08/there-are-states-where-you-technically-cant-hold-public-office-if-youre-an-atheist/The Washington Post
There are states where you technically can’t hold public office if you’re an atheist
By Hunter Schwarz July 8
Eight state constitutions include restrictions on people who don’t believe in a supreme being. In Arkansas, denying the existence of God means you can’t hold civil office or testify in court, while in Tennessee there are also guidelines about belief in the hereafter.
However, the Supreme Court ruled in a 1961 case that a Maryland man appointed as a notary public didn’t have to declare his belief in a supreme being to hold office, arguing it violated his rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Since then, these restrictions haven’t been enforced, said Dave Muscato, a spokesman for American Atheists.
Still, candidates for office who are openly atheist face discrimination at the polls. Muscato said a belief that atheists aren’t moral or trustworthy contributes to voters’ reluctance to say they’d vote for them. A 2014 Pew poll found 53 percent of Americans think it’s necessary to believe in God to be moral, and a 2012 Gallup poll found 43 percent of voters would not vote for a candidate who was atheist.
Here are the states and what their constitutions say about belief in a supreme being....
MORE at link posted above.
24 replies
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I wish the best for that family but I fear it will be a long, hard fight.
Sometimes it's such a damn, tiresome battle fighting a society so entrenched in religious prejudice. My wife and I are lesbians. We are older lesbians. We are older, feminist lesbians. We are older, feminist, atheist lesbians. We are older, feminist, atheist lesbians in what some would consider a mixed marriage (she is Hispanic, me a mongrel). There are those times I feel I haven't enough arms to wage all these battles, especially against magical thinking. It really can be exhausting and it's all so stupid and unnecessary.
This wouldn't be a problem.
ON EDIT:
And my home state is one of those with a constitution barring atheists from public office. That got tested in 1997 and unanimously kiboshed by the state Supreme Court. But the law remains on the books.
From Positive Atheism:
Note: "The State" is the newspaper in Columbia, SC. Being the state capital, Columbia is home to the State Legislature, the state prison and the state insane asylum. All three of which often greatly resemble each other in the actions of their inmates.
May 30, 1997
Columbia, South Carolina -- An atheist does not have to swear to a "supreme being" to hold public office in South Carolina, the state Supreme Court has ruled.
According to a report in The State, the court's five justices unanimously agreed that the requirement violates the U.S. Constitution and upheld a lower court ruling in the case of a College of Charleton professor. The professor, Herb Silverman, is an atheist whose application for notary public was turned down because he had crossed out the part of an oath that read "so help me God."
"The state Supreme Court didn't hesitate to find the religious test for public office to be a violation of religious freedom," Steven Bates, Executive Director of the ACLU of South Carolina, told the State.
The ACLU had filed the original lawsuit in 1993 on behalf of Professor Silverman.
The South Carolina high court agreed that forcing public officers to acknowledge the existence of a "supreme being" -- required by the state's constitution -- violated the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment that provides for religious liberty and separation of church and state.
South Carolina was one of seven states that require belief in a higher power to hold public office, the State said.
Arkansas, Maryland, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas have similar clauses, the paper said, but they don't enforce them.
Don't tell me that I am a better person for it, because I already have a tad bit of superiority feelings. 
If you have not been hit with the "you can't be moral if you don't believe in god" comments, you are very lucky. Well, I have not be told that I CAN'T be moral, but I am often asked HOW can you be moral without god. Good gravy!
Yep, that's called not taking responsibility for your own actions. There's morality for ya. 
There's a state, can't remember which, that has a law on the books that says women are not allowed to cut men's hair. Well that is reasonable because there is a bible verse that says that it's an abomination for a woman to cut men's hair. So in that case it's a reminder that the bible confirms that important abomination, and there's also something about jock itch reminding us of something in the bible... well anyway, the law is an ass. 
