First, the guy won, period. The law is at this point and time, unconstitutional.
Second, this looks very entertaining!
I smell a rat.
A super liberal is attacked by a super liberal . . . Gee. This wouldn't be a way to 1)make your conservative state appear backwards and 2) sell a ton of your own really bad books. http://braveulysses.com/
H. K. Edgerton’s come out against him? Must be a Yankee.
Has nobody ever read Article VI of the Constitution? “The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
As much as I don’t like atheism, this is ridiculous. The SCOTUS ruled long ago that state provisions, even in their constitutions, represent unconstitutional religious tests.
However, let’s look at what the REAL story behind this is: the coming crackup of part of the already-fragile Democrat coalition. Most atheists are Democrats, and most blacks are Democrats. Now, get the two to fighting, as we see here with a black pastor trying to use this law to subvert the election of a pencil-necked white atheist....
TORCASO v. WATKINS, 367 U.S. 488 (1961)
The court ruled unanimously in Torcaso's favor. Here are some highlights of Justice Black' opinion:
"There is, and can be, no dispute about the purpose or effect of the Maryland Declaration of Rights requirement before us - it sets up a religious test which [it] was designed to and, if valid, does bar every person who refuses to declare a belief in God from holding a public 'office of profit or trust' in Maryland. The power and authority of the State of Maryland thus is put on the side of one particular sort of believers - those who are willing to say they believe in 'the existence of God.' It is true that there is much historical precedent for such laws. Indeed, it was largely to escape religious test oaths and declarations that a great many of the early colonists left Europe and came here hoping to worship in their own way. It soon developed, however, that many of those who had fled to escape religious test oaths turned out to be perfectly willing, when they had the power to do so, to force dissenters from their faith to take test oaths in conformity with that faith. This brought on a host of laws in the new Colonies imposing burdens and disabilities of various kinds upon varied beliefs depending largely upon what group happened to be politically strong enough to legislate in favor of its own beliefs. The effect of all this was the formal or practical 'establishment' of particular religious faiths in most of the Colonies, with consequent burdens imposed on the free exercise of the faiths of nonfavored believers....."
When our [Federal] Constitution was adopted, the desire to put the people 'securely beyond the reach' of religious test oaths brought about the inclusion in Article VI of that document of a provision that 'no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States'....."
