Only in Iran...and Kentucky

[Rymdolov]

In Kentucky, a homeland security law requires the state’s citizens to acknowledge the security provided by the Almighty God--or risk 12 months in prison.

The law and its sponsor, state representative Tom Riner, have been the subject of controversy since the law first surfaced in 2006, yet the Kentucky state Supreme Court has refused to review its constitutionality, despite clearly violating the First Amendment’s separation of church and state.
 
"This is one of the most egregiously and breathtakingly unconstitutional actions by a state legislature that I've ever seen," said Edwin Kagin, the legal director of American Atheists', a national organization focused defending the civil rights of atheists. American Atheists’ launched a lawsuit against the law in 2008, which won at the Circuit Court level, but was then overturned by the state Court of Appeals.
 
The law states, "The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God as set forth in the public speeches and proclamations of American Presidents, including Abraham Lincoln's historic March 30, 1863, presidential proclamation urging Americans to pray and fast during one of the most dangerous hours in American history, and the text of President John F. Kennedy's November 22, 1963, national security speech which concluded: "For as was written long ago: 'Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.'"
 
The law requires that plaques celebrating the power of the Almighty God be installed outside the state Homeland Security building--and carries a criminal penalty of up to 12 months in jail if one fails to comply. The plaque’s inscription begins with the assertion, “The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God.”
 
Tom Riner, a Baptist minister and the long-time Democratic state representative, sponsored the law.
 
“The church-state divide is not a line I see,” Riner told The New York Times shortly after the law was first challenged in court. “What I do see is an attempt to separate America from its history of perceiving itself as a nation under God.”
 
A practicing Baptist minister, Riner is solely devoted to his faith--even when that directly conflicts with his job as state representative. He has often been at the center of unconstitutional and expensive controversies throughout his 26 years in office. In the last ten years, for example, the state has spent more than $160,000 in string of losing court cases against the American Civil Liberties Union over the state’s decision to display the Ten Commandments in public buildings, legislation that Riner sponsored.
 
Although the Kentucky courts have yet to strike down the law, some judges have been explicit about its unconstitutionality.
 
"Kentucky's law is a legislative finding, avowed as factual, that the Commonwealth is not safe absent reliance on Almighty God. Further, (the law) places a duty upon the executive director to publicize the assertion while stressing to the public that dependence upon Almighty God is vital, or necessary, in assuring the safety of the commonwealth,” wrote Judge Ann O'Malley Shake in Court of Appeals’ dissenting opinion.
 
This rational was in the minority, however, as the Court of Appeals reversed the lower courts’ decision that the law was unconstitutional.
 
Last week, American Atheists submitted a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court to review the law.
 
Riner, meanwhile, continues to abuse the state representative’s office, turning it into a pulpit for his God-fearing message.
 
"The safety and security of the state cannot be achieved apart from recognizing our dependence upon God," Riner recently t old Fox News.
 
"We believe dependence on God is essential. ... What the founding fathers stated and what every president has stated, is their reliance and recognition of Almighty God, that's what we're doing," he said.
 
Laura Gottesdiener

http://www.alternet.org/belief/year-jail-not-believing-god-how-kentucky-persecuting-atheists

Where was God on September 11? 

[Green1]

God was busy playing Alpha Centauri as Miriam. He got so involved in His ladder game versus St. Peter and Jacob, he missed out on airplanes crashing in.

[Buster's Uncle]

You guys do apreciate that this is a terrifically biased source, don't you?  It sounds like a very wrong thing if it turns out to be factually true at all, but I don't, and cannot recommend, going to militant atheist sites for my news about this kind of thing...

[Rymdolov]

The New York Times confirms that the law exists, but doesn't mention what the punishment for breaking it would be. The article also presents a more positive image of Tom Riner.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/us/04louisville.html?_r=0

But for all I know the NY Times might also be a militant atheist source. I don't know US media well enough to be able to tell. [shrugs]

Maybe I shouldn't have brought up a piece like this at all. Discussions about religion always upset people and I'm fairly certain that my view is different from that of most Americans on this topic. More to the point, my views and those of US Christians are probably close to incomprehensible to those from "the other side".

[Buster's Uncle]

Oh, I'm not surprized to find out the story was more-or-less factual.  It's just that I studied journalism in college and actually worked in the field professionally for a while, and I spotted that the story you posted wasn't proper journalism well before I got to the bottom and saw the link.  Crap "journalism" is a pet peeve of mine.

And of course it's a wrong-headed law - and a shameful thing that crap like that is tolerated for a second in what used to be a free country.

[Rymdolov]

It's an opinion piece rather than what could be called an actual article, that's for sure.

What's upsetting is not so much the law itself, but the fact that the courts haven't repealed (is that a word?) it yet. "Persecution of atheists" is a an exaggeration, even if the law could be used that way in a sinister but unlikely future. No-one is likely to be actually brought to court for breaking it, though, and even if the maximum punishment is 12 months in prison I doubt that any judge would come down that hard. Still it breaks an important principle and it's the job of the courts to get rid of unconstitutional laws like this one. I mean, the first amendment and the distribution of power between the court and other authorities are some of the genuinely good things about the US!

It's also frustrating that well-meaning people like this Tom Riner guy (at least I think that most people like him mean well) don't seem to understand the positive values off a secular society. (I'm using secular society in the correct way, meaning a society in which the government doesn't have the right to propagate for any particular religion.) Is it really so hard to see that the law that prevents his plaques is the same law that prevents muslims from putting plaques saying that true knowledge can only be found in the Q'uran at the entrance of public libraries? Or catholics putting up boards in schools saying that the Pope is the final authority? Well, well. That's today's rant from me. 

[JarlWolf]

In my humble opinion, religion shouldn't even be involved with any sort of government or associated with it. Not only for the sake of non religious people such as myself, or other religions, but for said religion itself. Religion is a spiritual belief, not a political one, and to take it to politics is corrupting the meaning and rendering a faith redundant in my eyes.

[Unorthodox]

Where was God on September 11? 

I've never understood either side of the whole "something bad happened, so God ___________"  argument. 

To the religious nutjob, God was angry for insert perceived offense here.  (Gays, abortion, etc.) 

To the atheist nutjob, God obviously doesn't exist because he let something bad happen. 

Neither argument makes any sense at all to me. 

Personally, I LOVE this law.  I want to move myself to Kentucky and erect a giant statue of Sakarabu with that plaque on it.  (African god of night, medicine, justice, and protector of villages.  Unless he's hungry then he eats you.)

[Rymdolov]

Where was God on September 11? 

I've never understood either side of the whole "something bad happened, so God ___________"  argument. 

Nah, it's just the old theodice problem and I agree it's just not interesting. I didn't want to put it forward as "evidence" in either direction, but as an example of how silly the wording of the law is.