ATHEISTS FIGHT BACK, CHALLENGE EVANGELICALS
Forecast for Primaries is Partly Murky with Scattered Court Cases

Tallahassee, FL January 29th, 2012 (SHK)

Jessica Ahlquist, 16, is an outspoken atheist in Cranston, Rhode Island. She has successfully sued her high school to have a Christian prayer removed from a wall in the auditorium.

“This damn prayer violates the separation of church and state,” she said, and the court agreed.

In 1980, a court decision struck down a Kentucky law requiring that a copy of the Ten Commandments be posted in every public school classroom.

Then when an Illinois school board voted unanimously to post the Ten Commandments in public schools, the resulting controversy dominated national politics for months. It encouraged Washington to withdraw from NATO and pushed conservatives to demand that the U.S. pull out of the UN.

“This is all just business as usual,” Brandon Bartlethwaite, 46, executive director of the American Association of Atheists and Anarchists (AAAA) said today. “We still owe a debt to the work Madalyn Murray did for us back in the 1960s.”

Madalyn Murray O’Hair (1919~1995) was an atheist activist who successfully protested Bible readings in Baltimore public schools. She later won a landmark Supreme Court ruling in 1963 that ended Bible readings in every American public school too. In 1964, Life Magazine referred to her “the most hated woman in America.”

“We have no objection to the posting of Christian prayers in public schools,” Mr. Bartlethwaite said, referring to the Rhode Island case, “as long as they appear jointly and severally with prayers from every other major world religion.”

As soon as he said this on the AAAA’s behalf, the national media was inundated with interview requests from American organizations for Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, Confucians, Muslims, Jews, Taoists, Humanists, Rainmakers, Pagans, Mandaeists, Druzists, Yazdânists, Rastafarians, Zoroastrians, Shintoists, Dharmists, Gnostics, Polytheists, Manichaeists, Samaritans, Carmelites and Turtle Wax enthusiasts.

“Holy Mother of (fill-in-the-blank)!” said Leon Leonwood, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union. “The ACLU’s got enough business now to last a lifetime!”

Putting their differences aside, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney issued a joint statement “in support of all religions everywhere on behalf of everyone regardless of income, tax rate or heretical origin.” Rick Santorum said he thought “the Rhode Island woman should be burned at the stake.”

Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore filed a legal brief defending the constitutionality of the Ten Commandments display in a state courthouse.

“Ah’ll burn in Hell,” he said, “afore yew gone take down them commandments!”

“He’s toast,” said Satan, reached via satellite telephone at his winter home on the south coast of Hades.
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© 2012 Steve Schlossstein
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