Secular Coalition for Arizona

Invocation for Opening of AZ House of Representatives Session

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Most prayers in this room begin with a request to bow your heads. I would like to ask that you not bow your heads. I would like to ask that you to take a moment to look around the room at all of the men and women here, in this moment, sharing together this extraordinary experience of being alive and of dedicating ourselves to working toward improving the lives of the people in our state.

This is a room in which there are many challenging debates, many moments of tension, of ideological division, of frustration. But this is also a room where, as my Secular Humanist tradition stresses, by the very fact of being human, we have much more in common than we have differences. We share the same spectrum of potential for care, for compassion, for fear, for joy, for love…

Carl Sagan once wrote, “For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.” There is, in the political process, much to bear. In this room, let us cherish and celebrate our shared humanness, our shared capacity for reason and compassion, our shared love for the people of our state, for our Constitution, for our democracy–and let us root our policymaking process in these values that are relevant to all Arizonans regardless of religious belief or nonbelief. In gratitude and in love, in reason and in compassion, let us work together for a better Arizona.

Juan Mendez, serves in the State House of Representatives and represents District 26 which includes north Tempe, northwest Mesa, and a large portion of the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community. Yesterday during his inclusive opening “prayer,” he appealed to the legislature to represent ALL the people of Arizona regardless of religious belief and base their decisions on reason and compassion. According to Jonathan Turely, “Arizona had an extraordinary moment.” He’s right of course. The moment was “extraordinary.” It made national news and the dust hasn’t settled yet. The echoes of the last word of this secular invocation hadn’t died out before the story was picked up by USA Today, The Huffington Post, The Raw Story, azcentral.com, and of course Jonathan Turley. There are probably others covering this news item. This should not be news worthy. It should not be an “extraordinary event” when someone comes out and appeals to a legislature to represent ALL of the people it represents. Recent polls show that one in five Americans do not affiliate with a religion. If one looks at only the young people under 30, fully one third of them are unaffiliated—one in 3! Of course, that’s a nationwide survey. NPR did a story back in January about the growth of the nones. In the article they state that religion still rules in America. There is only one openly “none” in the current Congress and that is Kyrsten Sinema who is also from Arizona. Statistics state that the average American is slightly more religious than the average Iranian. Really? Wow!

Evidently, the CAP (Center for Arizona Policy) hasn’t noticed what occurred yesterday. It will and it’ll start lining up candidates to run against Mr. Mendez. However, the CAP could be a little distracted by the fact that a bill it sponsored making abortions illegal after 20 weeks was struck down by Judges in Ninth Circuit Court. CAP may be too busy trying to figure out how to spin the murder conviction of the Pennsylvania abortionist to its advantage or counting the money it made on the $250 per plate CAP Family Dinner with Ben Carson held earlier in the month. Or perhaps CAP is busy playing ghost writer for legislative bills and resolution such as the resolution to maintain the Boy Scout’s “Don’t ask don’t tell” policy.

The Secular Coalition for Arizona is the only group in the state that can seriously impact the CAP and its legislatively imposed policies but we are seriously out gunned. Currently, we only have one professional lobbyist while the CAP maintains a constant presence at the state legislature. Even so, this year we’ve moved from a strictly defensive posture to one that is actively trying to reverse the damage caused by the CAP and 114 bills that have been signed into law since they formed in 1995.

The Secular Coalition for Arizona (www.secularaz.org) is a 501(c)(4) lobbying organization that represents 17 organizations in the Arizona nontheistic community — a vibrant and growing community of Arizonans who self-identify as Atheists, Agnostics, Humanists, Freethinkers, and other labels of personal choosing to elected officials in and from Arizona.

Psst…The Secular Coalition for Arizona does accept donations…

“Religion – religion, at best – at Best – is like a lift in your shoe. If you need it for a while, and it makes you walk straight and feel better – fine. But you don’t need it forever, or you can become permanently disabled. Religion is like a lift in the shoe, and I say just don’t ask me to wear your shoes. And let’s not go down and nail lifts onto the natives’ feet.” – George Carlin, October 11, 1975 on the first episode of Saturday Night Live.

I just returned from Austin, TX and the 50^th Anniversary of the American Atheists. It is normally held on Easter weekend as it was this year. Activities began on Thursday and ended on Easter Sunday. This year there were 938 attendees. It was a diverse group, too. That’s not too surprising given that the American Atheists was started by a woman.

Madalyn Murray O’Hair is responsible for the creation of the organization in 1963. She was in Austin, TX at the time. Then, she was “the most hated woman in America.” People hated her but she got needed things done and was outspoken and controversial. There were a lot of firsts associated with Madalyn. She was the first guest on the Phil Donahue show. On another appearance on the Phil Donahue show in a debate with “The Chaplain of Bourbon Street,” Bob Harrington, she said, “If America wakes up, what America will do is kick Christianity out.” Additionally, she tried to straighten out the preacher on the definition of Atheism but Bob continued to talk over her. Her cantankerous manner got her an interview in Playboy along with appearances on Merv Griffin and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. However, her most famous “first” was the fact that she was to first to address the United States Supreme Court as an Atheist. She started her opening statement with, “Your petitioners are atheists…” Also included in her statement was the following excerpt which was silk screened on the back of this year’s convention T-shirt:

“An atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An atheist believes that a deed must be done instead of a prayer said. An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanquished, war eliminated.”

In 1963, the justices of the Supreme Court voted in favor of her petition 8 to 1—a decisive victory for the separation of church and state.

Madalyn Murray O’Hair was born on April 13^th, 1919. She was a World War II veteran who served in the field of cryptography. She was college educated and trained in law. She worked as a psychiatric social worker for 17 years and was a supervisor at the Baltimore city public welfare department in 1960. Her Atheist activism started with a lawsuit against the Baltimore City Public School System for requiring her son to participate in Bible readings in the school he was attending. Her case reached the Supreme Court in 1963. Please note, she was not the only one that filed suit against such practices. Her case was combined with Abington School District v. Schempp and school prayer was previously eliminated by the court’s ruling on the case Engel v. Vitale in 1962. However, she was a lightning rod for controversy and unapologetically outspoken. She created the American Atheists and her “empire” had its own printing press and a loyal following.

In 1963 in an interview, Madalyn said that it would take one crazy person to end her life. That crazy person turned out to be David Waters, an ex-convict who served as the American Atheists office manager. He had been caught stealing from the organization and was fired. He took revenge on Madalyn, her younger son, and granddaughter by kidnapping them and squeezing what he could out of the American Atheists bank accounts. After 30 days of holding the family, he strangled them and disposed of the bodies. Ultimately, the disappearance of the trio would be solved but their bodies—dismembered, burned, and sealed in barrels—would not be found for five and a half years. The entire story can be found here. It is estimated that Madalyn Murray O’Hair was brutally murdered on September 29, 1995.

I didn’t know Madalyn but I know people that knew her. Some of the current leaders of American Atheists knew her well. Most that knew her, respected her. She was remembered by many. She knew that, “There is no God. There’s no heaven. There’s no hell. There are no angels. When you die, you go in the ground; the worms eat you.” The people that searched for her, found her, and attended her burial expressed the deepest sorrow for her. She got her wish when she said:

”I hope I live my life in such a manner that when I die, someone cares – even if it is only my dogs. I think I want some human being somewhere to weep for me.”

– Madalyn Murray O’Hair

 …and they did.

So far, Cathi and the marriage equality folks are on the same page—both believe marriage is a fine institution. Cathi wants to limit it to only one man and one woman but doesn’t make a convincing case for that position. There is more in the email.

She quotes statistics from a study performed at Princeton University that says kids raised in an intact house do better in school and generally have better lives. Lest we forget, Cathi likes kids with the possible exception of kids that turn out to be gay. Last year, she killed an anti-bullying bill on the off chance that it would protect gay kids from harassment. Here’s the VIDEO. In the reporting of Cathi’s action on the anti-bullying bill, they call her a “heavy weight lobbyist.”

She’s calling for prayers. She wants her people to join her at the Sandra Day O’Connor Federal District Court Houses to meet for a prayer vigil. Go for it! Because praying works SO well and by all means let’s do it in public in accordance with the Bible (Matthew 6:5) “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get.”

Jim Wilson has a question:

I know a few anti-gun zealots who would like the populace to be completely unarmed. I cannot help but completely disagree with them. Like most Americans I think law abiding people should be free to have guns, knives, swords, and etcetera for the purposes of self-defense, hunting, and peaceful recreation.

At the same time so many of my fellow American’s are happy to point the Second Amendment of the Constitution and declare it to be absolute and scream at the mere suggestion that we restrict people’s ability to buy assault weapons or high capacity ammunition magazine. I’m put off by both sides in the gun debate as more often than not absolutist gun nuts and gun abolitionist both seem to be driven more by ideological rigidity than a willingness to examine the issue.

I recognize that in practice the Second Amendment is not considered absolute by the majority of people on either side. Most gun rights advocates will not argue that the Second Amendment does not grant ordinary Americans the right to own ground-to-air missiles, weaponized anthrax, rocket propelled grenades, Apache helicopters, or nuclear bombs. For better or worse, most actually see it as a good thing that the government maintains a monopoly on these arms and they are not often accused of being inconsistent. There seems to be some sort of unspoken agreement that the line between what weapons we do or don’t have the right to own needs to be drawn somewhere. The question is, how do we determine where?

Perhaps it is the case that things like assault rifles are close to the line that is to be drawn. Or perhaps there is no line and we really should allow ordinary people to run around with tanks and cruise missiles. One friend of mine suggested that we will inevitably draw the line where the Supreme Court justice with the best persuasive skills says we should. So I’ll ask our readers, “How far does the right to bear arms extend?”

2012 had some highlight for us. We found out that the “nones,” those people with no religious affiliation, is the fastest growing “religious” group in America. This year the Supreme Court decided to review the “Under God” part of the Pledge of Allegiance. The arguments are now about equal rights and protection as opposed to violations of the First Amendment. In 2012, non-believers are finally recognized as a powerful voting block. This was the year of the Reason Rally in Washington, D.C. A couple of graduates from the Clergy Project came out in 2012 and have taken their place in helping the FreeThought community. Jerry DeWitt is the Executive Director of Recovering from Religion. Teresa McBain was a Methodist pastor for 10 years. She came out at the American Atheist convention and now works for that organization as a communications director. Jessica Ahlquist, a high school student, won a case that removed a banner from her school gymnasium. This year Arizona voted to have an avowed secularist sent to the House of Representatives, Kyrsten Sinema. Also this year the FFRF (Freedom from Religion Foundation) took action over the IRS’s failure to enforce electioneering restrictions. Ten Commandment monuments have been removed from public property in Pennsylvania. Prayer in public schools was fought and won in South Carolina. The fact that Pennsylvania declared 2012 the”Year of the Bible” was addressed. A long standing obvious violation of the separation of church and state was addressed in Montana where the permit for a life sized concrete statue of Jesus on public land was not renewed by the Forest Service. The FFRF is claiming over 140 legal victories in 2012 without going to court!

A scan of the Wikipedia page on science accomplishments during 2012 yields too many to list here. Off the top of my head I remember the discovery of the Higgs Boson and the amazing landing of the Martian rover Curiosity. There were of course many many more. While space science is always interesting we shouldn’t forget terrestrial advances being made by altruistic and dedicated individuals. The Guinea Worm Disease is about to become the second human disease to be completely eradicated. The first was small pox. In 2012 Stem cells were used to ease degnerative blindness in volunteers.

2012 was a year of the young activism. Jessica Ahlquist, Krystal Myers, Jeff Shott, Matthew Nielson, Maia Disbrow and Mayan and Balen Essak were all young activists that were in the news on the front lines of church and state separation. While the “nones” are on the rise generally and represent almost 20% or 1 in 5, the adults under 30 are polling at 33% or 1/3^rd of the population. We’re going into a new year and stats like that give the secularists a reason for hope for the future.

Happy Holidays!

Most of the GOP candidates are “pro life” and would criminalize abortions. However, MSNBC reports that there are 12 GOP Senate candidates that hold the position that they would not make an exception even for victims of rape or incest. Twelve! There are only 100 senators so that means if they all win there will be at least 1 in 8 senators holding this extreme position. These people are so convinced that their religious convictions are right that they feel that they can in good conscience dictate to the victims of rape that the government has the right to make them criminals if they choose to end their unwanted pregnancy.

In a way, this discussion represents a “de-facto” win for the Religious Right. They have moved the discussion to their side so much that they are able to concentrate on just the extremes. In their world, Roe V Wade is already gone. Let’s remember that it’s still the law of the land and move the discussion back to where it should be. Women still have a choice in this country and it should remain that way. If your religion forbids that choice, that’s fine for adherents to your religion. Most people regardless of religion believe that abortions should be legal, safe, and rare. In a properly educated society with access to birth control, unwanted pregnancies along with abortions would be rare. In Sweden, they believe that every child should be wanted and have much better statistics than we do.

The GOP Senate candidates that have been reported to hold the position that rape victims must be forced to carry their rapists’ babies to delivery are: Richard Murdock (IN), Rick Berg (ND), Michael Baumgartner (WA), Pete Hoekstra (MI), Tom Smith (PA), Todd Akin (MO), Josh Mandel(OH), Deb Fischer(NE), Ted Cruz (TX), John MacGovern (VT), Wendy Long (NY), and John Raese (WV).

While we’re thinking about a women’s right to choose remember the next president will probably appoint a judge or two on the Supreme Court. Something to consider before pulling the lever…

The subject of the meeting was, “Should Atheists be organizing politically?” The organizer is Nancy and she kicked off the discussion. Apparently, there is a new political party called the National Atheist Party. Nancy wanted to find out from those attending if it is a good idea to have an Atheist political party. Gregg, an occasional contributor to this blog, has been checking into it and was familiar with the organization. Most of us at the meeting were not very familiar with the specifics which is why the question was posed to be more general than, “What do you think of the National Atheist Party?”

After the requisite discussions about the meaning of Atheism, a frequently debated question in our group, we started kicking around the positive and negatives of organizing Atheists politically. There were some fundamental discussions such as:

• Would you vote for a poorly qualified candidate simply because he or she is an Atheist?
• What would we feel about a “National Christian Party?”
• Are we defined by our Atheism?
• Is there anything wrong with an elected representative taking governing guidance from an invisible entity?

As I mentioned earlier, we are a rather diverse group. We tend to think independently and the discussions were lively. Yet, as heated as the discussions were, everyone left the meeting with the full intention of returning in two weeks. Many of the discussions were continued in the parking lot. No one stomped off and we continued an ad hoc meeting with respect and camaraderie. Amazing!

The closest thing to a result is that most felt that the National Atheist Party may not be the best idea but we would still like to see more Atheists in office. The question of Atheism is very narrow and Atheists are all over the map politically. The difficulty becomes apparent as soon as the political party starts building a platform. Each plank that doesn’t relate specifically to the Atheist question will not be universally accepted and cause minor divisions. In some cases, people will reject the party entirely if it takes a controversial position and all positions other than the “god” question are controversial in the Atheist community.

There are existing “secular” organizations that we should support such as: The Secular Coalition for America, the Secular Coalition for Arizona, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State to name a few. There are many more. Most of us are not defined by our Atheism but it is part of who we are. Finally, there were some strong feelings about our elected representatives taking guidance from invisible (or imaginary) entities.

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Today, Jim Wilson points out an apparent inconsistency:

Corporations are the dominant form of organization in modern society. They make most of what we own and chances are that you currently work for one or have worked for one in the past. In the modern economy our fortune is tied to theirs. If they are not making profit levels they find acceptable, corporate share holders can disinvest and shut down much of the economy and compromise the economic well-being of everyone else. They wield a great deal of power over society. Many of us hear more direct orders from our corporate bosses in a given week than we hear from our government in a year.

We take this relatively recent development in our society for granted or natural. We look at corporations uncritically. This is especially true of more conservative libertarians and small government, free- market oriented friends. They feel that the modern business corporation is a legitimate part of the free-market as well as product of it but it is impossible to be consistently pro-free-market and supportive of modern corporations. They are one of the largest distortions of the free-market in existence today.

Corporations are by definition entities that have special government-granted legal privileges that are distinct from those of their individual members. They are distinct from other types of organizations operating on the market. A small business, a general partnership or sole proprietorship, which does great harm to the persons or property of others in the course of business, is legally responsible to the full extent of the damage. A business that receives a corporate charter however, has a limit on the extent that it could be held responsible. If a corporation is responsible for harm to the persons or property of others, shareholders may lose their investments and employees including management may lose their jobs but neither will be liable for debts to the corporation’s creditors or damage to other caused by their activities. In other words, corporate law sets up incentives for owners and managers to risk the well-being, health environmental, or national security of others with minimal risk of having to personally deal with the consequences. You can sue the corporation as an entity but the people responsible for its decision making and their accumulated wealth will be protected.

This feature is greatly responsible for much of the economic growth since the onset of the Twentieth Century. Growth is a product of special government treatment and it comes at a cost. As a result, large corporations have enormous political influence as well as massive influence over the economy and our individual lives. This is a violation of a truly free-market where the same liability standards would apply to all organizations. Libertarians are now in the awkward position of having to denounce government intervention that is likely responsible for a great deal of economic development or having to be inconsistent in their ideology.

Corporate law dictates that corporations be structured as a system of directors and subordinates. Special treatment is given to organizations that are highly hierarchical and pyramid shaped over the more egalitarian structured entities. The economy is now dominated by organizations set up in the same manner as the state and the military so much that such hierarchies now feel natural to us.

Corporations are similar to so called “free trade agreements.” While these by definition involve our government intervening in the economic policies of other governments and are inconsistent with a small government, conservatives universally support them. Consistent advocates of small government should oppose them. A consistent free market advocate should favor our government leading by example rather than meddling in the economic affairs of other countries. Only the favored industries tend to be ones our government subsidizes. If we actually grant all the assumption of free market rhetoric, the appropriate thing to do would be accept trade from all other countries regardless of their trade policies. A major point of these trade pacts is to get policies favorable to the stronger country “locked in.” When the weaker country elects new leadership or public opinion in it changes, the policies will remain unchanged. Our government also supports the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. They intervene internationally to promote U.S. business interests.

Many of the supposedly small government people in both the conservative and libertarian movements have a slightly corporatist bias. They ignore, take for granted, or even praise government intervention on behalf of corporate interest while railing against the welfare state or regulatory state. This is a double standard. It is unsurprising since a great deal of free-market rhetoric is funded by corporate interests. Corporate sponsored propaganda often makes corporations out to be the victims of government intervention rather than a product of it. The power of corporations should be questioned and advocates of free-markets and small government should play a key role. In doing this they would make their world-views more consistent.

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A few days ago, the Supreme Court upheld most of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, a landmark change in the nation’s health policy and one of the keystone achievements of president Obama’s first term in office.

I am in favor of health insurance reform, whether it takes the form of the Affordable Care Act or a single-payer system, because I am in favor of evidence-based compassion.

Most people, conservatives in congress included, are in favor of compassion.  In our society, we celebrate those who dedicate their lives to the care and protection of others. Nearly every young child will say, at one point or another, they want to be a firefighter or policeman. The news is inundated with stories of everyday people who help their fellow man when disaster strikes – people who dive into the water to save a drowning child, who rescue people and animals from burning buildings or floods.  In some cases, the heroes lend financial or moral support – a church that raises money for the poor for example. But in all of the most celebrated cases of heroism, the heroic act is directed toward a problem or a person in truly dire straits. They’re on the verge of death or extreme suffering, and the hero of the story lifts them out of harm’s way.

This kind of compassion is commendable and necessary, yet too often we forget the less noticeable opportunities for compassion, which, while requiring less philanthropy, less altruism, and less valor in the face of danger, offer no less a chance to save lives and alleviate suffering. For example, for every person rescued from a burning building, there are probably several dozen whose lives were saved in a much less dramatic way. These other lucky folks avoided a fiery fate, and they can thank evidence-based fire mitigation measures – smoke detectors, safe electrical wiring, and better construction practices, for example. They’ll never know that their lives were saved. Yet any statistician will tell you that an ounce of evidence-based prevention is worth a pound of heroes (or something like that).

It seems strange, then, that we see such an odd juxtaposition of compassion for patients in the emergency room and callousness toward patients in the neighborhood clinic. For example, suppose a woman rushes to the emergency room with a child who is in the midst of a violent seizure. The child will not, under any circumstances, be denied care – to deny treatment to such a patient would be cruel and potentially life threatening. If the family doesn’t have insurance, and if they don’t have enough money to cover the cost of treatment – which, in modern times, is often very high – the hospital will pay for the treatment and pass the cost off to other customers.

Now consider we learn that this child had, prior to his seizure, often complained of headaches accompanied by blurred vision., along with other worrisome symptoms. He had trouble with his schoolwork and his mother suspected there might be something wrong with his health. These issues went unchecked, of course, because the family had no insurance – they had no way to pay for preventive care. And had they shown up at the clinic and explained their situation, they would have been denied care – no one would have absorbed or redistributed the costs, because it wouldn’t qualify as an emergency. We could have prevented the traumatic (and likely expensive) emergency room visit if our society recognized the value of compassion in non-emergency situations. In other words, we could save money and prevent suffering if we dealt with illness in the same way we deal with fire – invest in prevention.

Some politicians believe there is a fundamental, almost dogmatic, distinction between emergency care and other types of treatment. To them, affordable ER care is compassion, while affordable preventive care is coddling. Somehow, it’s ok for us to distribute costs and risks so long as charity can only be found in the direst of emergencies. This separation of emergency care from treatment and prevention is an ideological doctrine that ignores evidence-based science and severely hinders our medical system. It just isn’t practical or efficient – it isn’t a good use of our society’s money and effort.

At this point, I have to admit that I have a personal stake in the matter. I am one of the 30 million Americans who would not have affordable health insurance if it weren’t for “Obamacare.” If I bought a private insurance plan, I would pay more in premiums than I pay in rent just for bare-bones coverage with hefty co-pays. I have no doubt that an emergency-room doctor would gladly treat me, insurance or no insurance, but the key advantage I currently enjoy is easy access to basic treatment and prevention.

I can tell you that inexpensive insurance coverage and reasonable medical fees go a long way toward swaying one’s opinion in an election season. As more and more people like me find themselves comfortably insured, I expect a cooling down of “Obamacare” rhetoric. We’ve already heard stories from people suffering from chronic illness, on the verge of losing coverage or running into their lifetime limit. For these individuals, the Supreme Court decision was literally a matter of life or death. You can bet the ailing will think twice before voting for Mitt Romney this fall.

Monday, May 21^st you can join the Tucson Atheists at the Denny’s on Speedway, just west of Alvernon at 7PM. This month we’ll be discussing what the United States might be like without the current religious influences. Along with that we’ll be discussing where Atheists get their morals. Finally, when things go our way who should we be thanking? http://www.meetup.com/Tucson-Atheists/

Tonight, up to 40 people will come together to share each others company and discuss freely what they believe would believe the world would be like without religion. We won’t be the first to ever discuss this question and we won’t be the last. If you type the question in Google, you’ll get many answers from many people. There are variations of the question, too. Some people ask, “What if religion never existed?” as opposed to, “What would happen if religion lost its current influence?” Of course, the answers from the net will be more balanced than you’re likely to hear at a meeting of non-believers. We’ve already decided that it isn’t for us. In scientific terms we’d be considered a self selected sample and subject to self selection bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-selection_bias). Our answers are going to be skewed toward the non-believer. On the whole, the data we develop from our attempt at finding an answer won’t be useful for informing policy decisions that affect the general public. At this point, many who read this blog will be saying, “That’s right!” without considering the opposite situation.

Currently, the Arizona legislature represents a situation that suffers from another source of bias, selection bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_bias). Ideally, we’d have a legislature making decisions that represents a fair sample of the population. Realistically, that’s not going to happen. It’s going to represent the people that are in the majority and the decisions are going to favor that majority. For the most part, that’s as it should be. However, the legislature is held in check by the type of democracy that the founders created—a constitutional democracy (http://www.answers.com/topic/constitutional-democracy). In an unlimited democracy, there is no limit on the majority and there is a very real danger of the tyranny

From the Oxford Guide to U.S. Government:

“A constitutional democracy, then, is government by majority rule with protection of minority rights. It is democratic because of its foundations of popular consent and majority rule. It is constitutional because the power of the majority to rule is limited by a supreme law.”

In editing this blog and watching the comments that are tossed back and forth, it is apparent that most want a variation of the same dream. Most people want to be left alone to live their life without others telling them what to do. Both sides often support their convictions with the same catch phrase, “Read the Constitution” but each side has its favorite part of the Constitution. What amazes me is that there are some that believe that the constitution doesn’t apply to state government. That’s scary to me and to the others that will be meeting tonight because we understand that we are, in most surveys, the most hated and distrusted minority in the country (for example: http://atheism.about.com/od/atheistbigotryprejudice/a/AtheitsHated.htm). Here’s the irony, we believe the most important part of the Constitution are the limits that it places on the majority. We’re fond of the limits that it places on the government. This is reasonable coming from a hated and trusted minority. People representing the majority often believe that the most important part of the Constitution is the limits that it places on itself. I believe that somewhere in all these discussions, we’re missing the fact that there is a high degree of commonality between these groups but tonight we’ll be coming together and imagining what the country or the world would be like if the Atheist wasn’t the most hated and distrusted minority.