Atheism as Religion under First Amendment: Ruling by Federal Circuit Court of Appeals

[lilithu]

I wonder if there will be law suits about atheism being taught in public schools. Will the Religious Right demand "equal time"?

I was not aware that atheism is taught in public schools. I was taught subjects that were atheistic in that there was no mention of God. But at no time was I taught that there was no God. Not even when I was taught the theory of evolution. Go figure.

 

[opuntia]

Given that we have a president who believes that God put him in the White House and a Supreme Court, the majority of whom are openly religious, I am currently not concerned about the possibility of our government favoring atheism and being hostile to religion. I am much more concerned about a certain narrow brand of Christianity becoming so powerful that it excludes other religions and other forms of Christianity.

I am more concerned where the Supreme Court is going at this point. See the following:

"Supreme Court interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause has come full circle. From its narrow reading of the clause in 1878 in Reynolds, to its much broader reading of the clause in the Warren and Burger Court years, the Court returned to its narrow interpretation in the controversial 1990 case of Employment Division of Oregon v Smith. [a Native American religion case.] The story of this circular migration is an interesting one, and may provide lessons for other areas of constitutional interpretation.

"The Court's decision in Smith provoked almost unanimous criticism on Capitol Hill, and Congress quickly responded by passing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, designed to restore the test abandoned in Smith. This effort, however, largely was to fail, as the Supreme Court ruled that Congress lacked the power to compel state accommodation of significantly burdened religious beliefs and practices.

"The Supreme Court's first encounter with a Free Exercise Clause claim came when a Mormon polygamist in the Utah Territory challenged his conviction under a federal anti-polygamy law. The Supreme Court rejected the appellant's claim that his religious beliefs necessitated, and therefore excused, his violation of federal law. The Court read the Free Exercise Clause as protecting religious beliefs, not religious practices that run counter to neutrally enforced criminal laws.

"By the Warren Court years of the 1960s, the Court had adopted a much more expansive view of the Free Exercise Clause, reading it to compel governmental accommodation of religiously-motivated conduct in the absence of a compelling state interest and the use of means that least burdened religious practices. Applying this strict scutiny to laws that significantly burdened religious exercise, the Court found unconstitutional South Carolina's law denying unemployment benefits to a Seventh Day Adventist who turned down a job opportunity that included Saturday work (Sherbert).

"The Burger Court continued to apply this test, using it in 1972 to find unconstitutional (as applied to Amish families) Wisconsin's law mandating attendance in schools until age 17 (Yoder). State and lower federal courts, of course, applied strict scrutiny to enjoin a variety of criminal laws in the 1970s and 80s. For example, in 1979 in Frank v Alaska, the Alaska Supreme Court held that the state could not enforce its hunting laws against Athabascans who were religiously-motivated to hunt moose out of season--moose being a key ingredient in a religiously proper funeral potlatch.

"By the mid-80s, the Supreme Court, while still using heightened scutiny, began to take a more skeptical view of Free Exercise claims. The close division of the Court on these claims was revealed in its 1985 affirmance (by an equally divided Court, Justice Marshall not participating) of an Eighth Circuit decision enjoining Nebraska from enforcing a state law requiring photo identification on driver's licenses against a Nebraska motorist who believed that such pictures violated the Second Commandment's warning against worshipping graven images (Quaring v Nebraska). The next year, the tide turned against Free Exercise claimants when the Court rejected, 5 to 4, the seemingly sympathetic request of an Orthodox Jewish army psychiatrist who felt religiously-compelled to wear a yamulke on duty, and who asked to be exempted from the military's ban on such headwear (Goldman).

"Lyng v Northwest Protective Cemetery Association in 1988 provided a major hint of the revolution in Free Exercise law to come by adopting a per se rule that the government need not concern itself with the impact that its land use decisions might have on religious practices. Based on this newly announced principle, the Court permitted the United States to proceed with construction of a road through a national forest that would concededly have severe consequences for the practitioners of a Native American religion who considered the area sacred.

"The big development--shocking to some--in Free Exercise jurisprudence came in Employment Division v Smith in 1990. Reinterpreting and, in some cases, throwing out decades of case law, five members of the Supreme Court concluded that a generally applicable criminal law raises no Free Exercise issues at all, ending what had long been the obligation of states to demonstrate at least an important state interest and narrow tailoring when they enforced laws that significantly burdened religious practice. The Court reinterpreted some Free Exercise cases such as Yoder as 'hybrid' cases, raising both Free Exercise and substantive due process issues. Other cases such as Sherbert, Thomas, and Hobbie were placed in the special category of 'unemployment compensation rules' --and left undisturbed. From now on, the five-member majority proclaimed, states will have to satisfy heightened scrutiny (except for hybrid cases and unemployment cases) only when a law specifically targets religious practice.

"In 1993, in Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v Hialeah, the Supreme Court took a case which it concluded showed an attempt by government to specifically target an unpopular religious practice, and struck down the laws in question--all designed to deal with animal sacrifice practiced by a large but largely clandestine religion of mostly ex-Cubans. The Court unanimously concluded that the ordinances of Hialeah violated the Free Exercise Clause.

"The Smith decision proved as unpopular with Congress as it did with many within the religious community. Congress in 1993 responded to the Smith decision by voting overwhelmingly to pass the Religious Freedom Restoratation Act of 1993 designed to return religious exercise cases to the pre-Smith standard for laws burdening religious practices. Under RFRA, federal, state, and local laws interfering with religious exercise would have to be supported by a compelling state interest and be a least restrictive of religious freedom as possible. The Supreme Court, however, gets the last word on issues of constitutional interpretation. In 1997, in City of Boerne v Flores, the Court ruled that RFRA was unconstitutional, at least as applied to state and local governments. The Court concluded that the Constitution, and in particular Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, gave no power to Congress to do more than adopt remedial measures consistent with Fourteenth Amendment interpretations of the Court, and that Congress had instead tried to changed the substantive law--substituting its interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause for that of the Supreme Court.

"In 2004, the Supreme Court in Locke v Davey considered the reach of Lukumi Babalu in a case involving a Washington State scholarship program for gifted students. The program allowed students receiving a state scholarship to pursue any major, with one exception: a degree in devotional theology. When Joshua Davey, a scholarship recipient, was denied funding to pursue a theology program at Northwest, a private religious college, he sued, alleging that Washington had violated his Free Exercise right. Chief Justice Rehnquist, writing for a 7 to 2 majority, found that the Free Exercise Clause and Establishment Clause, read together, offered enough 'play in the joints' to allow Washington to exclude a major in devotional theology, 'a religious calling' as much as 'an academic pursuit,' from the list of endeavors it will support with taxpayer funds. Justices Scalia and Thomas disagreed, finding the exclusion to be a clear violation of Free Exercise principles laid down in Lukumi Babalu."
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/freeexercise.htm

The 1800 actions may have been overt; but today it is the covert we must watch for, the subtle stripping away of our protections.

 

[lilithu]

I am more concerned where the Supreme Court is going at this point. See the following:

<...>

The 1800 actions may have been overt; but today it is the covert we must watch for, the subtle stripping away of our protections.

Yes, I am familiar with these cases. Btw, you have a cut and paste error. Paragraph 2 is basically a restatement of your second to last paragraph and belongs much later than where you put it.

I do not see the alarming trend that you seem to be implying with these case descriptions.

The Supreme Court has always allowed for the government to make certain restrictions on free-exercise provided that the state can show that a "compelling government interest" is at stake. For example, in Quaring v. Nebraska (1985) SCOTUS agreed with the state of Nebraska that it was necessary for it to require photos on driver's licenses in order for the state to do its job. Imagine law enforcement officials trying to identify people without the use of photo ID. This is similar to another case, Bowen v. Roy (1986), which you did not include, in which SCOTUS agreed with the federal government that its requirement of a social security number in order to receive welfare and food stamps was a compelling government interest. Imagine the federal government trying to keep track of welfare recipients without the use of social security numbers.

In the case of Goldman v. Weinberger (1986), the plaintiff was a commissioned officer in the air force. SCOTUS ruled that the military has a compelling government interest to enforce a dress code. In addition, I might add, people in the military have never had the same rights that civilians do. In all three of these cases, there was compelling government interest. The weakest of the three I would say is the last one, but I agree that the military is a special circumstance.

And if free-exercise is under attack as you imply, how to explain Lukumi Babalu Aye v. Hialeah (1993)? The Supreme Court actually sided with a Santeria church that the city's ban against animal sacrifices was a violation of free-exercise. Don't get me wrong; I agree with the ruling. But I woulda thought that if SCOTUS was going to rule against anyone, it woulda been a fringe group that does animal sacrifices. Kudos to them for making the right call. And this was three years after the infamous Smith case.

The only rulings of the ones you listed that I feel are egregious violations of free-exercise are Lyng v. Northwest Protective Cemetery Association (1988) and Smith v. Employment Division (1990). Unfortunately, both cases involved the rights of Native Americans, and I can't help but believe that some bigotry underlies SCOTUS' rulings against them.

As for the 2004 decision, I am surprised by the ruling but not unpleasantly so. The case pits free-exercise against anti-establishment, since allowing state money to fund a scholarship for a degree in theology would allow free-exercise for the plaintiff but could be seen by many as violating the establishment clause (govt money going towards a particular religion). In this case, anti-establishment won. You seem to be more concerned about an erosion of free-exercise, at least from this post. Whereas, I think free-exercise is relatively healthy except for our continued despicable disregard for Native Americans. Otoh, I have been concerned about the erosion of the separation of church and state. Under Rehnquist, the Supreme Court overturned the Lemon test and made it substantially easier for government money to be used to fund religious programs. So I really would have expected the Locke v. Davey case to go the other way.

 

[opuntia]

The paste is from the website, so the error is not mine.

Under attack? Under tension is more like it; Congress felt justified in enacting RFRA, even though the Court truncated the law to include only the Federal government. There is tension today between the judicial and the legislative. See http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:IUmqbdY3xskJ:ntweb11a.ais.msu.edu/luaoe/downloadables/publications/Policy_Briefs/religiouslanduse.pdf+RFRA+Congress&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=4

 

[lilithu]

The paste is from the website, so the error is not mine.

So you didn't actually read the paste before you took it from the website?

Under attack? Under tension is more like it.

A "subtle stripping away of our protections" sounds more like an attack to me than being in tension. Religious liberty has always been in tension - tension between the interests of religious groups and tension between the interests of religion and government. I'm not worried about tension. I do worry that separation of church and state has been weakened by the govt push (by both the executive and judicial branches) for funding of faith-based initatives.

And I agree with the website that the Smith ruling is worrisome. I honestly believe that the motivation behind it was bigotry towards NA's and an irrational fear of marijuana. But the rationale that they used to justify their ruling sets a very bad precedent that can be exploited in the future.

 

[lilithu]

The Mormons almost lost all of their church property in the late 1800s. The United States Supreme Court authorized the confiscation of church property and the jailing of individuals who practiced polygamy.

"The following is a timeline of events leading up to the suspension of new polygamous marriages in 1890. During this interval, many attempts were made to achieve statehood for the territory of Utah. All were unsuccessful -- largely because of the widespread practice of polygamy:

"1856: The recently formed Republican Party called, in its national platform, for the abolition of the 'Twin Relics of Barbarism, Slavery and Polygamy.' 5 [footnotes]

"1862: The Mormon practice of polygyny was criminalized by the federal Morrill Anti-Bigamy Law which President Abraham Lincoln signed into law on 1862-JUL-8. There were actually two unrelated federal laws often referred to as the 'Morrill Act;' the other deals with land grants for universities. 7 The anti-bigamy Morrill Act It made bigamy a federal offense and assigned a punishment of up to five years in jail and a $500 fine. The law also annulled all acts passed by the Territory of Utah's Legislative Assembly 'pertaining to polygamy and spiritual marriage.' Finally, in a direct attack on the LDS church, the law placed an upper limit of $50,000 on the real estate holdings that any one religious or charitable organization could hold in any U.S. territory. Any holdings over that amount were to be forfeited to the government. 'The law, however, was not enforced in the Utah territory because Mormons controlled the judicial system. ...Probate courts functioning as local tribunals had jurisdiction over most criminal offenses, and federal indictments for polygamy could not be obtained from grand juries composed of Mormons. ...Thus, despite Congress's efforts, the Mormon Church still exercised considerable control in the [Utah] territory.' 8

"1874: In a test case, George Reynolds, Brigham Young's secretary, volunteered to be charged under the Morrill Act. The Church had claimed that the federal government had no jurisdiction to regulate marriage and other internal church practices. They also claimed that the act was a violation of Mormons' First Amendment rights. He was found guilty, given a two year jail sentence, and ordered to pay a $500 fine.

"1879: The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Reynold's conviction. They declared that the Morrill Act was constitutional, that the government had a right to enforce marital standards, and that polygyny was a barbarous practice.

"1880: LDS leader Wilford Woodruff submitted a revelation he had received from God to church president John Taylor and the Twelve Apostles. God promised retaliation against anyone who seeks '...to hinder my People from obeying the Patriarchal Law of Abraham...your enemies shall not prevail over you.' 5 (This religious law authorized plural marriages.)

"1882: The federal Edmunds Act amended the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Law of 1862. It canceled the citizenship rights of polygamous Mormons. They were no longer allowed to vote, run for public office, or serve on a jury.

"1887: Wilford Woodruff recorded in his journal that '...scores of the Leading Men of the Church [are] in prison and the Presidency and Twelve & many others in Exile for obeying the Law of God.' The federal government passed the Edmunds-Tucker Act as a supplement to the Edmunds Law. This authorized the government to disincorporate the Church and to confiscate its assets.

"1889: Wilford Woodruff, now president, received a revelation from Jesus Christ who promised that he would protect the church's practice of polygamy from attacks by the federal government.

"1890: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the government could deny the right to vote or hold office to all Mormons who practiced the Law of Abraham, or who merely believed in plural marriage. Later in the year, they ruled that the Edmunds-Tucker Act was constitutional, and that the federal government could repeal the LDS' charter and dissolve the church. The situation had reached a critical point in the Utah territory.

"When the federal government announced that they would start to seize the temples, the LDS Church decided to obey the law. At that time, the Church received a revelation from God that changed church beliefs and practices. The fourth president of the Church, Wilford Woodruff, issued a manifesto (called the 'Great Accommodation') on 1890-SEP-24. It generally suspended the solemnization of new plural marriages for an indefinite interval.

"Woodruff wrote, in part,

"'And I now publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land.'

During the next thirteen and a half years, 'members of the First Presidency individually or as a unit published twenty-four denials that any new plural marriages were being performed. The climax of that series of little manifestoes was the 'Second Manifesto' on plural marriage sustained by a vote of a general conference.' 9

"President Joseph F. Smith's later statement of 1904-APR-6 read, in part:

"'Inasmuch as there are numerous reports in circulation that plural marriages have been entered into contrary to the official declaration of President Woodruff, of September 24, 1890, commonly called the Manifesto... I, Joseph F. Smith, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, hereby affirm and declare that no such marriages have been solemnized with the sanction, consent or knowledge of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.' 9

"In spite of the denials, a few such marriages were apparently sealed as late as 1910 for trusted leaders of the Church. The polygamous weddings were generally performed secretly in Mexico or Canada.

"U.S. President Cleveland issued a statehood proclamation for Utah on 1896-JAN-4, six years after the manifesto was declared. Although no new polygamous marriages were conducted after the 1920's, existing plural marriages continued to receive strong support from the Church." http://www.religioustolerance.org/lds_poly.htm

The bone of contention was over polygamy, a practice still observed in Islam (limit of 4 wives). The Holy Bible carried references to plural marriages.

"So David [king of Israel and slayer of Goliath] went up thither, and his two wives also, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail Nabal's wife [after he died] the Carmelite." (2 Samuel 2:2: KJV). Cf. 2 Sam. 5:13; 12:7-14; Gen. 16:1-16.

If you're arguing that our laws against polygamy is a violation of free-exercise, I agree.

 

[opuntia]

The purpose of the Free Exercise and Establishment clauses has been served best when all are capable of observing their religion, but history has not shown that was always the case.

Today we are free to observe our religions; but constant vigil has to be maintained to keep it that way so that the pendulum would not swing back to the days when the Mormon and Native American religions were close to being dissolved.

Today, it may be the freedom fighters of Islam (as they perceive themselves to be) who are the target of oppression by the United States.

At Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, about 500 detainees are held incommunicado, with no access to legal counsel, family or country representatives--although 14 so far have filed for relief on claims of being noncombatants in U.S. courts, see Rasul v. Bush (2004) http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=03-334. That they believe they are combating under Islam should not be in doubt however misguided we think them to be. In the article by the Washington Post, military personnel are under that perception.

"The [military investigation] report…notes the use of ’gender coercion,’ [in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq] in which women straddle a detainee or get too close to them, violating prohibitions for devout Muslim men on contact with women." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/13/AR2005071302380.html

Cf. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=ab0YPAiueMR4&refer=top_world_news.

Military report on "gender coercion":

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jul2005/d20050714report.pdf

That some have used religion as the basis for offensive measures--on both sides--can hardly be debated.

America, as a bastion for religious freedom, cannot prevent some from exercising unrighteous dominion over others--even those who represent the U.S. in military roles. The U.S. Supreme Court has said regarding warfare:

"Striking the proper constitutional balance here is of great importance to the Nation during this period of ongoing combat. But it is equally vital that our calculus not give short shrift to the values that this country holds dear or to the privilege that is American citizenship. It is during our most challenging and uncertain moments that our Nation's commitment to due process is most severely tested; and it is in those times that we must preserve our commitment at home to the principles for which we fight abroad." Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004) http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=03-6696

Wartime situations exacerbate the potential for unwarranted violence or abuse in individuals. The U.S. Army dog handler recently convicted last month for prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, said to the jury that convicted him, "Soldiers are not supposed to be soft and cuddly." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11943182/. Soldiers serving in the military have been confronted with the potential for violence beyond what is necessary to accomplish the task and have succumbed. Whether they served in the 1800s or in the present, the potential for violation of others’ religious beliefs is there and has been committed. That we feel that all is well at home, that we go to church in peace, is not proper if others abroad are having their religious convictions violated either by our own government or its representatives. Do citizens of other countries have the same right to believe in their religion as we do ours? The answer would have to be yes. Is religion a proper venue for declaring war? Perhaps. The Crusades of the Middle Ages were fought on religious grounds against the Muslims. Today, some Muslims obviously feel threatened by the West and its secular or nonreligious aspects. They fear corruption from the West, with its lax attitudes on pornography, alcohol consumption, and other moral turpitudes (as they perceive them). Some feel they should act and have done so.

If we feel that we hold the upper hand, then abusing others by religious means should not be utilized. Others in various countries may not believe that we are, as a country, owning up to our commitments--as we espouse them. For example:

"Columnist Ahmed Saeed says unlike the justifications the extremist right in the White House is marketing concerning treatment of detainees in Guantanamo, the report of the United nations last week came demanding closure of the detention camp because of its violation of a group human rights, such as torture, arbitrary retention and having a just trial.

"The report which its announcement coincided with scandals of pictures of torture and violations by the occupation forces in Iraq prisons, has torpedoed all slogans of human rights and freedom the American Bush administration is bragging of. The American arrogance maintained its refusal of closing down detention camps and non-recognition of the rights stipulated in the international charter on political and civil rights although it is one of the signatory countries.

"All indications, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan or Guantanamo Bay confirm that the American administration is maintaining its practices of revenge against the prisoners and the peoples who refuse its policies, heedless of any criticism or demand to stop its crimes against humanity." http://www.yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=924&p=press&a=3

We are not perceived by all peoples as a virtuous nation, even though a few have violated our principles of freedom. In the same measure, I suppose we view Muslim combatants as representative of the Islamic world.

I had begun this thread to address the inclusion of atheism as religion under the First Amendment, but circumstances have drawn me from that very important point. So if you could manage to address yourselves on that point and save your debates for another thread it would be appreciated.

 

[Alceste]

I think the judge's reasoning is totally ridiculous. In fact, I would call it a violation of the first amendment in and of itself. A judge who uses Bible stories to justify his decision is a representative of the state, promoting a religion at taxpayer expense.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I don't understand why atheists should get special rights. This makes me sick.

 

[Luminous]

yes, atheism can be as disgusting and despicable as all the other forms of anti-agnosticism

 

[McBell]

According to the ruling of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, decided August 19, 2005, atheism is religion under the First Amendment. See Kaufman v. McCaughtry, Case No. 03-C-027-C.

Let us consider the words contained in Exodus

How about instead we consider from the case you present:

But whether atheism is a &#8220;religion&#8221;
for First Amendment purposes is a somewhat different
question than whether its adherents believe in a supreme
being, or attend regular devotional services, or have a
sacred Scripture.

The Supreme Court has recognized atheism as equivalent
to a &#8220;religion&#8221; for purposes of the First Amendment on
numerous occasions, most recently in McCreary County,
Ky. v. American Civil Liberties Union of Ky., 125 S.Ct.
2722 (2005).

The Establishment Clause itself says only that
&#8220;Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,&#8221; but the Court understands the reference to religion to include what it often calls &#8220;nonreligion.&#8221;

In
McCreary County, it described the touchstone of
Establishment Clause analysis as &#8220;the principle that the
First Amendment mandates government neutrality between
religion and religion, and between religion and
nonreligion.&#8221;
As the Court put it
in Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38 (1985):
At one time it was thought that this right [referring to
the right to choose one&#8217;s own creed] merely proscribed
the preference of one Christian sect over another, but
would not require equal respect for the conscience of the
infidel, the atheist, or the adherent of a non-Christian
faith such as Islam or Judaism. But when the
underlying principle has been examined in the crucible
of litigation, the Court has unambiguously concluded
that the individual freedom of conscience protected by
the First Amendment embraces the right to select any
religious faith or none at all.
Id. at 52-53. In keeping with this idea, the Court has
adopted a broad definition of &#8220;religion&#8221; that includes
nontheistic and atheistic beliefs, as well as theistic ones.

Thus, in Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488, it said that a
state cannot &#8220;pass laws or impose requirements which aid
all religions as against non-believers, and neither can [it]
aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God
as against those religions founded on different beliefs.&#8221; Id.
At 495.

Atheism is, among other things, a school of
thought that takes a position on religion, the existence and
importance of a supreme being, and a code of ethics. As
such, we are satisfied that it qualifies as Kaufman&#8217;s religion
for purposes of the First Amendment claims he is attempting to raise.

Source
​

Seems to me that you are either ignorant of what the case is actually about or you are counting on the ignorance of others.

 

[McBell]

Is the vote in regards to the actual court case mentioned in the OP or the strawman the OP makes from the actual court case?

 

[Revoltingest]

yes, atheism can be as disgusting and despicable as all the other forms of anti-agnosticism

That's silly. Atheism is simply the non-belief in gods....no other dogma at all.
Any disgusting or despicable behavior is up to those pesky humans.
Atheism is a lot like religion in that it doesn't cure stupid or mean.

The court case makes perfect sense, since atheism functions much like a religion
for legal purposes.

 

[McBell]

I don't understand why atheists should get special rights. This makes me sick.

How is atheism being given special rights?
Did I miss something?

 

[Revoltingest]

How is atheism being given special rights?

Those darned atheists!
1) We kept them from putting "In God we really really trust" on our money.
2) You can't get tax money for an auto de fe anymore.
3) Angry mobs with pitchforks & torches need insurance & a parade permit now.
4) No more compulsory prayer in public school.
5) Ruining the sex lives of priests.
6) Proliferation of gays marrying each other.
7) The sham of evolution as science.
8) Repeal of blue laws.
9) Banning The Flintstones from a list of science class documentaries.
10) The 21st Amendment to the US Constitution.

(To my fundie friends....yooz know I'm just bust'n yer chops.)

 

[Copernicus]

I cannot vote in this poll, because you did not specify what I would be agreeing with--that atheism is a "religion" or that it has the legal status of a religion. Neither atheism nor theism is a religion, because religions typically have doctrines that go beyond mere belief or disbelief in a deity. From a legal perspective, however, atheism is protected under the First Amendment. The court chose to use different wording than I would have, but that hardly matters to me. What matters is that my views on religion have equal status with anyone else's. I do not want my government trying to shove your religious views down my throat, nor do I want it shoving my views down yours. The government should not take sides in religious disputes.

 

[blackout]

Atheism is, among other things, a school of
thought that takes a position on religion, the existence and
importance of a supreme being, and a code of ethics.

In what way does "atheism" take a position on "a code of ethics"?

 

[Copernicus]

In what way does "atheism" take a position on "a code of ethics"?

In no way at all. The author of those words was just expressing his bias. Nevertheless, he did understand the principle of government neutrality on matters of religion and non-religion.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

How is atheism being given special rights?
Did I miss something?

Well, it's been awhile since I posted that response, but, if I apply knowledge of my propensity for making ironic statements, I'd say that what I meant was that any time a court rules in favor of some group getting equal treatment under the law, there's always somebody complaining about those people getting granted special rights. Just a wild guess.