AN antiquated rule in North Carolina’s constitution that disqualifies people “who shall deny the being of Almighty God” from holding political office has been dredged up against Asheville City Councilman Cecil Bothwell by Christian fundies.
They are threatening to take the city to court for swearing in the 59-year-old atheist this week, even though the state’s requirement that officeholders should believe in God is unenforceable because it violates the US Constitution.
Atheist councilman Cecil Bothwell
According to this report, 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.
Said the recently-elected councillor:
The question of whether or not God exists is not particularly interesting to me and it’s certainly not relevant to public office.
Bothwell ran this fall on a platform that also included limiting the height of downtown buildings and saving trees in the city’s core, views that appealed to voters in the liberal-leaning community at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains. When Bothwell was sworn into office on Monday, he used an alternative oath that doesn’t require officials to swear on a Bible or reference “Almighty God.”
That infuriated conservative activists, who cited the “no disbelievers” provision in NC’s constitution. The provision was included when the document was drafted in 1868 and wasn’t revised when North Carolina amended its constitution in 1971. One opponent, H K Edgerton, is threatening to file a lawsuit in state court against the city to challenge Bothwell’s appointment. He said:
My father was a Baptist minister. I’m a Christian man. I have problems with people who don’t believe in God.
Even if he can’t force Bothwell out of office, Edgerton said he hopes a legal battle would ultimately force North Carolina’s Legislature to determine the legality of the article of the Constitution.
If the law is wrong, it is the obligation of the Legislature to say it’s wrong.
The head of a conservative weekly newspaper says city officials shirked their duty to uphold the state’s laws by swearing in Bothwell. David Morgan, editor of the Asheville Tribune, said he’s tired of seeing his state Constitution “trashed.”
But Bothwell can’t be forced out of office over his atheist views because the North Carolina provision is unenforceable, according to the supremacy clause of the US Constitution. Six other states, Arkansas, Maryland, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas, have similar provisions barring atheist officeholders.
Bothwell said a legal challenge to his appointment would be “fun,” but believes his opponents’ efforts have more to do with politics than religious beliefs.
Said Bothwell, who’s lived in Asheville nearly three decades and wrote the city’s best-selling guide book:
It’s local political opponents seeking to change the outcome of an election they lost.
The fundies may also be miffed by the fact that Bothwell did a hatchet job on one of their most iconic figures: he wrote a book entitled The Prince of War, Billy Graham’s Crusade for a Wholly Christian Empire.
Bothwell was raised a Presbyterian but began questioning Christian beliefs at a young age and considered himself an atheist by the time he was 20. He’s an active member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Asheville and he still celebrates Christmas, often hanging ornaments on his Fishhook cactus.
There is a poll currently running on Foxnews, asking:
Should atheist councilman step aside?
This morning the “NO” vote stood at 71 percent.
Hat tip: Sister Talitha
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
December 15th, 2009 at 9:31 am
They won’t get anywhere because, as you say, this particular piece of legislation has already been decalred unenforceable by the Supreme Court. It would be termed, I believe, frivolous litigation. However, as someone has commented on Proud Atheists, why do atheists have to meekly put up with this constant denigration? Can anyone imagine American States carrying outdated legislation that forbad Jews from holding office?
December 15th, 2009 at 10:35 am
Before anyone starts thinking Fox viewers have come over all liberal it’s worth mentioning the poll was 64% Yes before it was “Pharyngulated” yesterday afternoon.
December 15th, 2009 at 11:47 am
H. K. Edgerton = Go Then Drek!
December 15th, 2009 at 11:53 am
It’s promising that an atheist can get elected in the US, albeit at a local level. What with a lesbian mayor of Houston, there are definite signs of sanity over the herring pond.
December 15th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
It’s most encouraging, also, to note that, even back in 1868, atheists were making enough of a nuisance of themselves, letting people know how irrational their views were, to necessitate having this clause in the state legislation!
December 15th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
The arrogant arse know as H K Edgerton says: “My father was a Baptist minister. I’m a Christian man. I have problems with people who don’t believe in God.”
And there you have Christians in a nutshell. Indoctirnated, Intollerant. Incredibly stupid.
December 15th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
There was a discussion on another blog about the ’states’ have control of certain laws and rules and the ‘feds’ having others.
This along with a very long list of ‘immoral activity’ but numerous states (IE the Georgia chain gangs being populated but speeders caught by hidden signs) that proves the states do not have the intelligence to rule themselves very well in terms of law and constitution. Common laws should not be a mine field for travelers and anything dealing with government should be common too all. We are after all the UNITED states
December 15th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
In case readers are not aware of the fact, Billy Graham did in fact live at Charlotte, North Carolina. The Montreat Presbyterian College (“We’re real people with a real and active God”!) has now grown up around the farm where the great man was born, along with a Conference Centre and the vast Billy Graham Library, opened a couple of years ago,
December 15th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
I recall an amusing anecdote that I heard some years ago from a Dr W. Graham who resided near the home of the evangelist. Apparently, he got so fed up with receiving phone calls asking whether he was Dr Billy Graham, and whether he could dispense some of his famous advice, that he gave up trying to explain the situation and just listened to what the callers said, giving them the benefit of his own home-spun wisdom! According to what he said they were all more than satisfied with his helpful replies, so one can draw one’s own conclusions from this little tale!!
December 15th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
I can understand why the incurably godphuqt are desperate to equate the absence of superstitious ignorance with the absence of moral worth. With the number of nontheists, both in America and worldwide, already up to 36 percent (Ronald Aronson, Living Without God) and increasing exponentially, they know at least subliminally that they are facing elimination and can only survive by convincing the curably ignorant that their mind-AIDS is a virtue to be clung to at any cost.
With the winning of elective office by blacks, gays, Jews and other minorities leading to those formerly-suppressed groups being recognized as entitled to full equality, it will be just a matter of time before the election of nontheists encourages other nontheists to come out of the closet. And the godphuqt know that, once the masses become aware that nontheists outnumber any specific religion, the fact that theism correlates inversely with intelligence and education and positively with incarceration in correctional institutions, the two-thirds of believers who are curable are bound to start wondering if they are on the losing side. And at that point enslavement to religion will go the same way as enslavement to Soviet fascism.
December 15th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
That intellectual giant and all-American hero, Rick Warren, is spouting more lies about atheists being in the minority on a truly mind-boggling Faux News interview viewable here:
http://proudatheists.wordpress.....n-atheist/
What on earth the execrable Fox News is doing transmitting tripe like this I have no idea!
December 15th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Look at this (it seems that any comment more than two words long disappears for hours, and can’t be edited either, now!):
http://proudatheists.wordpress.....n-atheist/
December 15th, 2009 at 11:13 pm
Asheville is basically my “hometown” being I graduated from high school just 20 miles outside of Canton. I am so happy for Bothwell!
A few points about the city. I believe Graham still lives just outside of Asheville in Montreat. He still has a training center in the area. Asheville has really changed over the years…yet some things stay the same! I made a few comments in the introductory letter of “Anatomy of a Christian Hate Letter” series on my website main page about what another past recent of Asheville had said (Thomas Wolfe).
What changed in Asheville was that many of the tourist who visited fell in love with the city/area and moved there! The locals lost the city to the influx of the new residents! The changing of the leaves in the fall is an aesthetic treat to behold in the local mountains!
I’m sure many of the “old timers” in the region are furious with Bothwell’s victory…this signifies that times are changing. Rolling Stone said that Asheville was the “New Freak Capital of the U.S.” Yet 20 miles away in Canton, the local church pastor who wanted to have a “non KJV Bible and Christian book burning of Christian writers like Graham and Warren” this past Halloween was denied by law from doing so!Yet regionally, many of the locals are still so religious that I myself cannot get very good old friends to return an email or even become Facebook friends!
Another point worth noting is that B Graham himself stated something like “God himself didn’t have a political party” which is to be contrasted to many of today’s infamous preachers who climb the religious right ladder. Sure Graham was usually around presidents…but otherwise steered clear of the religious right machine. I’ll close by stating..”So many paradoxes here”! Congradulations Mr. Bothwell!
December 15th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
Billy Graham certainly made a mistake getting so close to Nixon, though, and even flirted with the idea of accepting a position in the administration. Asking Tricky Dickie to speak at his Knoxville Crusade in 1970 nearly ended his career! And if you look at the BGEA site whose name do you see in bright neon lights – why, Sarah Palin, of course!!
December 16th, 2009 at 12:21 am
I’d love to know if father and son here (Graham’s) had one of those old school/new school father and son talks?
Barriejohn, could you privately email me? I don’t know of another way to do it (reaching you)…I wanted to ask about an older discussion we had.
December 16th, 2009 at 12:36 am
Franklin Graham has taken on his father’s mantle, but operates in a very different way. He also has a reputation as a bit of a playboy. Ned Graham is another “modern” evangelist who also operates a charity (East Gates) which is under a financial cloud, and is being handled only by himself and close family members now. Neither of these two characters is fit to tie his father’s shoelaces, but I seem to remember one of them being involved in some sort of a scandal years ago, where he had exposed himself to a group of girls, but if so it has been airbrushed from history! Can anyone help?
December 23rd, 2009 at 1:35 pm
I’ve enjoyed the discussions popping up all over the Web.
Per Graham’s politics—that’s what my book is about, and while some seem to think it’s a hatchet job, it’s actually an investigative political biography. I don’t take particular issue with Graham’s religious beliefs (except insofar as his actions seem at odds). What I found fascinating was that the public stance was that of offering spiritual guidance, but my five years of poring over presidential communications, documents in presidential libraries and the Billy Graham archives showed that he was a covert political operative. He advocated war to every president from Truman forward, even urging genocidal bombing in Vietnam (to Nixon). The week before the first Gulf War, GHW Bush wrote that Graham told him Saddam was “the AntiChrist itself” and that it was Bush’s historic mission to destroy him.
As an investigative reporter for many years, I thought the story of those back-room conversations and advocacy were worth telling. Graham may not have been the out-front political operator that other right-wing religionists have been, but he was arguably far more influential.