Lawsuit Threatened Over Atheist City Councilman

Cecil Bothwell is an atheist. He was also recently elected to the Asheville City Counsel. He wants to abolish the death penalty, conserve water and believes in government reform. But there’s a few other politicians who are threatening to sue because of his stance on not believing in a god.

North Carolina’s Constitution states only those that believe in an “Almighty God” are permitted to hold public office, but this is the dumbest law ever and the U.S. Constitution says otherwise. What a person believes in has no bearing of how they will perform on the job. If public office is considered a job that just happens to be decided by voters, then this is discrimination at it’s best. When you apply for a job, they can’t turn you down for the job based on sex, religion, age and plenty of other reasons that have nothing to do with the job function.

H.K. Edgerton wants to waste tax dollars and bring a suit to challenge Bothwell’s appointment as a city councilman. He’s not playing religion, he’s playing politics. He has been noted in saying, “My father was a Baptist minister. I’m a Christian man. I have problems with people who don’t believe in God.”

Well Mr. Edgerton, perhaps you should stop shoving your nose in other people’s personal business and get back to doing whatever it is you do. Simply put, get use to the idea not everyone thinks like you. By saying you have a problem with those that don’t believe in a God is like the KKK members saying they have a problem with the color of your skin, it’s called hate!

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.

There are still lots of dumb state laws that are now irrelevant and unchanged. Anything that the Federal government has ruled on automatically makes such laws mute and trying to bring them back to light is just wasted dollars and resources that could benefit so many other things.

Read the original article here.