Blog de Ford

Ugh:

North Carolina’s constitution is clear: politicians who deny the existence of God are barred from holding office.Opponents of Cecil Bothwell are seizing on that law to argue he should not be seated as a City Council member today, even though federal courts have ruled religious tests for public office are unlawful under the U.S. Constitution.

You gotta wonder why that law is still on the books in NC, since courts have decided that religious tests for public office have been deemed as unconstitutional. But in a country where child molesters are only slightly less popular than atheists, I guess it’s not much of a surprise.

Rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution trump the restriction in the state constitution, said Bob Orr, executive director of the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law.

“I think there’s any number of federal cases that would view this as an imposition of a religious qualification and violate separation of church and state,” said Orr, a former state Supreme Court justice.

In 1961, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Maryland’s requirement for officials to declare belief in God violated the freedom of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment.

But, I guess if you’re a Christianist, your religious views trump everything, including the Constitution of the United States and human decency.