Atheists Condemn Supreme Court Decision Permitting Trump's Muslim Travel Ban [View all]

[Cuthbert Allgood]

In response to the Supreme Court upholding Donald Trump‘s Muslim travel ban — technically, a ban on several Muslim-majority countries for purported reasons of security — a number of secular groups have spoken out against the decision, calling it a form of religious discrimination.

To put it another way, a whole bunch of atheists are defending Muslims and religious freedom, because discrimination on the basis of religion should concern all of us.

Here’s Larry T. Decker, Executive Director of the Secular Coalition for America:

By upholding President Trump’s travel ban, the Supreme Court has legitimized bigotry and threatened the rights of all Americans. This travel ban is nothing more than a thinly-veiled religious test and the fulfillment of President Trump’s repeated pledge to institute a ‘total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.’ Any reasonable observer assessing the travel ban in light of President Trump’s 2016 campaign will see it for what it is — an assertion of Christian privilege, anti-Muslim bigotry, a rebuke of our First Amendment, and a grave threat to religious freedom.

FFRF was more blunt on Twitter, calling the ruling “disgraceful”.... In a longer explanation, they said the ruling ignored very clear constitutional limits:

The travel ban blatantly disregards the Establishment Clause, as FFRF demonstrated in its “friend of the court” brief it filed before the Supreme Court against the ban. The Trump administration’s history of excluding from entry to the United States immigrants and non-immigrants from selected majority-Muslim countries violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, FFRF had contended. The travel ban also contravenes Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits a religious test for office or public trust.

Full Article at Pathoes

I know that some in this discussion group want to portray atheists as religion hating bigots, but this is what it means to be an atheist to me. And a reason I'm happy I send the FFRF some of my money each year.