patrickumsted.com

Asheville Citizen-Times:

Opponents of Cecil Bothwell are seizing on that law to argue he should not be seated as a City Council member today, even though federal courts have ruled religious tests for public office are unlawful under the U.S. Constitution.

Voters elected the writer and builder to the council last month.

“I’m not saying that Cecil Bothwell is not a good man, but if he’s an atheist, he’s not eligible to serve in public office, according to the state constitution,” said H.K. Edgerton, a former Asheville NAACP president.

Article 6, section 8 of the state constitution says: “The following persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God.”

Rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution trump the restriction in the state constitution, said Bob Orr, executive director of the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law.

“I think there’s any number of federal cases that would view this as an imposition of a religious qualification and violate separation of church and state,” said Orr, a former state Supreme Court justice.

In 1961, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Maryland’s requirement for officials to declare belief in God violated the freedom of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Additionally, Article VI of the U.S. Constitution says: “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

I don’t know too much about this situation other than it seems cut and dry.

1) Bothwell won the election.
2) It doesn’t matter what the North Carolina’s Constitution says because Article VI of the US Constitution states that there should be no religious test for public office and that federal law supersedes state law in instances where they conflict. Obviously, North Carolina is a signatory to the US Constitution.
3) Clayton Bigsby H.K. Edgerton could, quite possibly, be mentally ill.  This is Mr. Edgerton:

Mr. Edgerton was also on the Board of Directors of the Southern Legal Resource Center which has strong ties to the League of the South–an extreme right wing neo-Confederate organization.  Just in case you are unfamiliar with this group, here is information pulled off their own site:

‘The League of the South asserts that Southern society is radically different from the society impressed upon it by an alien occupier. American society today is egalitarian and Marxist and is devoid of any grace or charm.“

egalitarian-”asserting, resulting from, or characterized by belief in the equality of all people, esp. in political, economic, or social life.”

Doesn’t seem like such a bad thing to me. I don’t know…maybe I am crazy. Of course, the lack of “grace or charm” is on the same level as Marxism to these people. So maybe their priorities are off kilter.

“To be truly free and self- governing, the South must throw off the yoke of imperial oppression. Therefore, The League of the South advocates the secession and subsequent independence of the Southern States from this forced union and the formation of a Southern republic.“

Treason.

“It is The League of the South’s assertion that the system of fiat currency, fractional reserve banking, unfair trade agreements, outsourcing of jobs, and confiscatory taxation imposed by the American Empire have reduced considerably the Southern people’s standard of living.”

You are telling me that since 1971(when the US went to a Fiat currency from the Bretton Woods system) that the economic quality of life hasn’t improved throughout the South….especially in the urban areas of Atlanta, Nashville, Charlotte, Spartanburg, Northern Virginia, Houston, Dallas, etc. I’ll give you that Memphis and New Orleans have been stagnant at best, but overall, our tax system has been more beneficial to the South than to other parts of the country. Especially when you consider that the Southern states are net beneficiaries, monetarily, from our current tax system.

[emphasis is mine]