Asheville City Councilman Cecil Bothwell believes in ending the death penalty, conserving water and reforming government — but he doesn't believe in God. His political opponents say that's a sin that makes him unworthy of serving in office, and they've got the North Carolina Constitution on their side.
Bothwell's detractors are threatening to take the city to court for swearing him in, even though the state's antiquated requirement that officeholders believe in God is unenforceable because it violates the U.S. Consititution.
"The question of whether or not God exists is not particularly interesting to me and it's certainly not relevant to public office," the recently elected 59-year-old said.
2 comments:
Isn't North Carolina one of the last states to repeal that law that insisted that men and their wives made love only in the missionary position? And that was within the past very few years.
And we thought Arkansas was strange!
The American Civil Liberties Union is pushing ahead with another lawsuit in behalf of Bothwell, as the very wording of that clause in the state constitution: Article 6, section 8 which reads, “The following persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God.” Is in fact federally "unconstitutional" according to an ACLU spokesperson I spoke with in their Raleigh office earlier today.
The spokesperson also noted that six other states — Arkansas, Maryland, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas — have similar provisions barring atheist officeholders.
Though, according to the American Bar Association's Constitutional law experts here in Washington D. C., they indicate such laws are unenforceable.
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