Atheist under fire for (lack of) beliefs (video: The Rachel Maddow Show)
Sorry, but a preposterous story merits a preposterous title.
It was gratifying to see Rachel Maddow take a look, last night, at this bit of bigoted theocracy-in-action in Asheville, North Carolina. Details of this loony-tunes attack on Cecil Bothwell have been making the rounds on most of your better non-belief, atheist, new atheist and secularist blogs and news sites. It’s also, thankfully, received more than a little attention in the mainstream media. The New York Times, for example, ran it on 11 December:
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 has riled conservative activists, who cite a little-noticed quirk in North Carolina’s Constitution that disqualifies officeholders ”who shall deny the being of Almighty God.” The provision was included when the document was drafted in 1868 and wasn’t revised when North Carolina amended its constitution in 1971. One foe, H.K. Edgerton, is threatening to file a lawsuit in state court against the city to challenge Bothwell’s appointment.
”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.
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.”
Austin Cline, writing at Austin’s Atheism Blog, noted that the god-fearing, atheist-hating local whackjob, HK Edgerton, was not the only party attempting to deny Bothwell his constitutional rights:
What’s more, he’s surely not alone in this. Christian bigots attacks Cecil Bothwell over his atheism during the campaign as well:
Flyers mailed before the election criticized Bothwell over his atheism and his book, “The Prince of War,” which denounces evangelist and Montreat resident the Rev. Billy Graham for pushing what Bothwell says is a theocratic agenda.
(source of Cline’s blockquote: Asheville’s Citizen-Times)
Curiously, Asheville’s Citizen-Times makes this observation about Bothwell’s most vocal detractor, HK Edgerton:
“If they go ahead, then the city of Asheville and the board of elections could be liable for a lawsuit,” said Edgerton, who is known for promoting “Southern heritage” by standing on streets decked out in a Confederate soldier’s uniform and holding a Confederate flag.
(emphasis: mine)
Things get curiouser and curiouser when we discover that HK Edgerton is the former president of Asheville’s National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Why, one might ask, is Edgerton the former head of the NAACP?
Wikipedia has the answer:
Edgerton runs a website, Southern Heritage 411, which provides Southern viewpoints such as that there was great love between the African who was here in the Southland and his master and research on Black Confederate participation in the American Civil War.
In December 1998, Edgerton was suspended from the NAACP after he approached Kirk Lyons, an attorney who had represented Ku Klux Klan leader Louis Beam in a 1988 conspiracy trial, to assist the Asheville NAACP in a lawsuit over housing policy. According to the NAACP, his suspension was due to non-compliance with the organization’s rules when the Asheville chapter fell into debt. In 1999, he was voted out of office.
As Zeus Almighty is my witness, I kid you not.
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