Whackadoodle Right Alert: Conservatives in NC to sue atheist city councilman for being...an atheist

[marmar]

Atheist city councilman in NC challenged by foes citing outdated clause of state Constitution

ALYSIA PATTERSON Associated Press Writer
5:45 p.m. EST, December 11, 2009


RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — 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.

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." ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/sns-ap-us-godless-politician,0,4070443.story

[Starry Messenger]

1. (facepalm)

When are we bringing back stoning?

[SoxFan]

3. Don't give these people any ideas...

[Odin2005]

2. Us Atheists are always treated like shit.

[Kalyke]

16. But, at least on this board, you atheists treat us non-fundie believers like shit, too.

I don't have a "make believe" friend in the sky and my beliefs aren't stupid.

If you'd kindly pass along to your fellow atheists that tolerance of other people's views - to the extint that it does not harm you - is progressive.

Thanks.

[Initech]

4. Too many fundies, not enough lions.

[Ikonoklast]

5. He should subpeona God to be a material witness to the civil suit.

I'm willing to bet he'd be a no-show.





Although I'd laugh the fillings right out of my head if Odin showed up.

[ThomCat]

7. He could subpeona Yaweh, Odin, Zues, and all other primary

deities with an interest to be served by proving the existence of God and or Gods. That would really get people's underwear in a knot.

But he won't, because that would be combative, and as a politician representing people of faith he'll try to be a peacemaker.

[Kalyke]

18. He might show up.

[Ikonoklast]

19. And give each of those idjits a 'dope slap' upside their head

just for being terminally annoying and intolerant.

[NMMNG]

6. Those horrible atheists are always persecuting Christians!

Oh, wait, never mind.... :yoiks:

[provis99]

8. boy, do I hate Christian fundamentalists

those people are the scum of the earth. Fuck em all.

[dixiegrrrrl]

9. I see no difference between the Taliban and the fundies.

ok, maybe except for the beards.
Same sense of humor, tho.

[Golden Raisin]

14. The core zealotry and insularity

are exactly the same.

[dixiegrrrrl]

15. "return with us to the days of yesteryear" when Puritans ran amok.

[struggle4progress]

10. I haven't seen any evidence of a lawsuit yet, just two news articles citing neo-confederates, one in

the Asheville Citizen-Times earlier this week citing the very weird H.K. Edgerton, and this AP wire piece citing Edgerton and David Morgan of the Asheville Tribune

I can't imagine that Edgerton, Morgan, and similar wackos could produce a lawsuit that would pass even first muster in court

H.K. Edgerton was booted from the NAACP a decade ago. He then joined the neo-confederates and tried to get attention by the usual confederate flag worship, walking at one point to Texas dressed in gray and carrying the battlejack. He turned his mother's funeral into a neo-confederate celebration. Eventually, of course, the white supremacists drove him out.Now he's looking for some other way to get attention.

[kirby]

11. Misleading...

This person threatening suing is the former president of the local NAACP chapter, not the 'whackadoodle right'.

"My father was a Baptist minister. I'm a Christian man. I have problems with people who don't believe in God," said Edgerton, a former local NAACP president and founder of Southern Heritage 411, an organization that promotes the interests of black southerners.

It is this guy:

[DavidDvorkin]

12. Wackadoodle fundie, then.

[struggle4progress]

13. Um ... Edgerton got booted from the NAACP a decade ago: his chapter didn't pay its dues,

and the national organization stepped him and reorganized it. Before that, Edgerton had curiously started hanging out with white supremacists, like holocaust denier Kirk Lyons, and he threw himself into the neo-Confederate movement when he lost the NAACP post. The neo-confederates used Edgerton as a prop for for a while, but eventually white supremacist sentiment prevailed and he got chased from their movement

"Whackadoodle" really is the correct description of Edgerton.

[G_j]

17. I've met him

my lawyer told me she thought he took too much acid in his lifetime.
I could not figure out if she was kidding or not..


I also Know Cecil pretty well, have worked with him many times as an activist.
He is an exceptional person, and Asheville could not have a better person on City Council.

[Starry Messenger]

20. Emphasis on *former*.

His new organization is listed on the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group.

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=252

" Klowning as the Klan
Edgerton, meanwhile, sees himself as playing to both sides of the aisle. He considers himself "very much a part of the NAACP," the "same old Edgerton," despite politics that have caused his former colleagues to shun him.

"His elevator doesn't go all the way to the top," Rev. Skip Alston, executive director of the North Carolina NAACP, told a reporter recently. "It doesn't even reach the second floor. We don't recognize anything that he's doing."

Edgerton was suspended from the NAACP in 1998 for non-compliance with the organization's rules after his Asheville branch fell into debt. But even before that, Edgerton had met in a controversial luncheon with Kirk Lyons (see In the Lyons Den), a white supremacist lawyer who has taken to defending the neo-Confederate cause of late.

At the luncheon, Edgerton, Lyons and Lyons associate Neill Payne clowned with napkins set atop their heads that were meant to look like Klan hoods. In that garb, the threesome posed for a photo that appeared in a local newspaper."