Cecil Bothwell was elected to the Asheville, North Carolina city council in November. His oath of office stood out like a sore thumb. He was the guy who ended his oath with “do you give your solemn affirmation” Instead of So help me God. You see giving your solemn affirmation is what people who do not need to pledge their fear of gods help not to mess up.  Mr. Bothwell is an open atheist. His ability to hold that office legally is now in question , and article 6 sec 8 of the NC state constitution says..

…Sec. 8. Disqualifications of office. The following persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God….

What is obsurd here besides the obvious religious discrimination is that Article 6 of the US consitution famously says

… no relgious test shall ever be required as a quilification to any office or public trust in the United States…

And when an conflict between the US consution and a states consution exist there is somthing calledan infesiable infraction.  Basicly when this happens the US consutiion wins.

What is so irritaiting here is the state of NC has had since 1896 to remove this from the constituion. This law (plus another absurd one we wont get into) were carried over from the 1886 consituition. This infisable infraction was brought to the attention of the state in 1896. And in all these years they havn’t gotten around to stiking it off.

Now a radical newspaper editor is using this consituinal prevision to try to have somone removed from office, and now Mr. Bothwell must spend time and money that he could be putting to productive use to fight just to maintian his status.

A person has the right to privacy of religion, to not be discriminated against based on their religion or lack there off. Generally speaking it is popular to discriminate and beat up on atheist. No Mainstream politician would ever openly run as an atheist because the stigmata of doing so would be political suicide. George Bush (the older one) once said in an interview with reporters that he did not consider atheist as citizens of the United States. The Boy scouts of America, even though they receive public tax dollars and use government land openly discriminate against atheist children.

Coming out as an atheist in any manner, but especially in a very public manner, is dangerous and made even more dangerous by Christians in America. They insist that America is a “Christian Nation,” which often appears to mean that atheists aren’t welcome and shouldn’t make waves by demanding equality. For many atheists, the idea of America as a “Christian Nation” is one that instills fear at the prospect of what Christians might do when they have even more power to discriminate than they currently do.

A couple years ago Alcoholism was not considered a disease. It was through conchinse raising of the medical community and TV that this was a real problem that people accepted it as a real problem that people needed treatment for. Now the same thing is happening to Sexual and Love Addiction. There are people out there who think of sexual addiction as nothing more than an excuses used by celebrities who got caught. This is made worse by people like Nancy Grace (That loud mouth, uninformed, right winged, bigot) who claim on her show that sex addiction is not real,a nd her loyal viewers with out thinking for themselves automatically agree. Because If they say it on TV it must be true. In a couple seconds Nancy Grace probably set back the work people like Jill and Dr Drew have been doing for year to bring sexual addiction into the light as a real problem.

The producers of Sex rehab have a real chance to raise peoples choncince on this. But if they contuine to choice druama over treatment and make descions for the show based on what is better TV material that what better convays the truth then we can forget the show being any good for helping avg joe better understand sex and love addiction as being a real problem.

An Example: Keri-Ann.  Dr Drew on his syndicated radio show LOVE LINE Dr Drew has admitted that Keri-Ann was an active speed and drug user before her admission. Other cast member of the show have come out that Keri-Ann failed numerous drug tests. This instead of excluding her was overlooked to get her onto the show (in my opinion souly for the TV content she would bring) The rules were over looked for Keri-Ann but when she provoked Selma day after day and finally went past threatening them and made a physical action that some could interpretable as an attack by throwing a vase at Selma. Selma’s  reaction caused her her job. Because of the rules. The same rules that were ignored to get Keri-Ann there in the first place.  Selma was a great help to the pts of Sex Rehab and her leaving the show was a great loss.