Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1976
Vol: 18
No:11
$1.00
"...
one nation,
under God.
"
IN THIS ISSUE:
ELECTION
A Journa-I of Atheist
II
1976
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ON THE
COVER
AMERICAN
Vol. XVIII,
ATHEIST
No. 11
Editor:
Contributing
BICENTENNIAL
MAGAZINE
November 1976
Anne Gaylor
Jon Murray
Avro Manhattan
John Sontark
Cover Artist
Jo Kotula
Marilyn
Circulation
Samuel Miller
Manager
Printer
Hauk
Daniel Baladez
CONTENTS-THIS
ISSUE
INDEPENDENCE
DAY
~ l)roclamation
By the president of the United States of America:
I n recognition of the two-hundreth anniversary of the great historic events of 1776/ and in keeping with the wishes of the Congress, I ask that all
Americans join in an extended period of celebration, thanksgiving and prayer on the second, third,
fourth and fifth days of July of our Bicentennial
year-so that people of all faiths, in their own way,
may give thanks for the protection of Divine Providence through 200 years, and pray for the future
safety and happiness of our nation.
I call upon civic, religious, and other community leaders to encourage public participation in
this historic observance. I call upon a" Americans,
here and abroad, including a" United States flag
ships at sea, to join in this salute.
As the bells ring in our third century, as millions of free men and women pray, let every American resolve that this nation, under god, will meet
the future with the same courage and dedication
Americans showed the world two centuries ago. In
perpetuation of the joyous ringing of the Liberty
Be" in Philadelphia, let us again "proclaim liberty
throughout
a" the land unto a" the inhabitants
therof."
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set
my hand this twenty-ninth
day of June in the year
of our lord nineteen hundred seventy-six, and of
the United States of America the two hundreth.
-Gerald R. Ford
It is fashionable to emphasize, in these evangelical days, that this is "one nation, under god."
The true meaning of the phrase is adequately expressed on our cover.
News
ELECTION
1976!
From the days of the tampering with Lincoln's Gettysburg address, to the days on which
our era was predicated, the mindless have rallied to
the call. Indeed, on June 14, 1954, even our Congress participated when, on that date, a law was
passed to insert the phrase in our pledge.
The only way Atheists should
with the contempt it deserves.
handle
it
IS
traditionally
heavily Democratic
in political
suasion. Daley, of Chicago, is typical.
News
These 14 pivotal
states represent enough
electoral votes to win the White House in that big
raffle coming up.
EDITORIAL
'\\
20%
10%
22%
22%
24%
24%
29%
Illinois
:
Wisconsin
New Jersey
New York
Connecticut
Massachusetts
Rhode Island
30%
31%
29%
.40%
.49%
50%
60%
Why?
November 1976/American
per-
Atheist
this
issue of
the
not, the
into polyears he
that they
magazine.
Read
The Editor.
FRANKL~ MY DEAlt
, OON'T~VE AD'MN.
R=tJ~
..
m;~~~A~,.~a
November 1976/American
';/
Atheist - 5
The
of
Perils
by Henry
One
candidates
chant:
Fairlie
wh ich
the
second
worker
responds:
November
1976/ American
Atheist
Political
-6
~/
Prayers
J. BROWN (who unlike others is not kneeling, but prostrate on the ground in a saffron robe):
"Kyrie
Eleison! Hare Krishna! In my father's
house, too, there were. many mansions. Hare
Krishna! Kyrie Eleison! But I don't live in them.
Kyrie Krishna! Hare Eleison! Help me to change
the chemistry of men's lives. Krishna Eleison!
Hare Kyrie!"
R. REAGAN:
"I think I should
that we have already built the kingdom
on earth in California. Nevertheless, I
my speechwriters to put references to
my speeches from now on. "
point out
of heaven
have asked
you in all
Atheist - 7
"Hear, hear!" murmured the Lords Temporal, most of whom had been absolute bounders
when they were junior officers; and as I left the
Palace of Westminster, .I found myself humming,
"There'll
always be an England," once more
sucked into a reluctant admiration of my oppressors.
Vf~Y Nl(E.
fRErE/U~(v IN If
{"I(pl( CA(JfiVGr ?ofT.
~~
qn
Nt .I'fEAKI(~A(;
'?iJllIIE /loLl!)"'Y,
6E/?fllw/~ l&?rER,
I
5HVIJEKI,
,;If~)"
/III/I} I,,, I
,{rrING
..
I(EEI'
oe
"".
But if Jimmy Carter takes us into the confessional box, and pulls aside the grille, what are
we to say of Jerry Brown? (No wonder the state
governments of the United States are going to pot,
if their governors are always engaged in private
communications with their maker.) I find the ecstatic torpors of Jerry Brown not only unacceptable in a serious politician but what we used to call
"school-girlish."
I often wonder, if, when he is engaged in his personal colloquies in his pad in Sacramento, he is doing much more than twisting his
braids with one hand and writing excruciatingly
with the other, "Dear Diary ... "
One is willing to let one's politicians find
whatever solace they require. After all, one of the
greatest of British prime ministers, W. E. Gladstone, the spokesman of the Nonconformist
conscience in his day, used to fill his evenings by going
into the streets and communing with prostitutes,
saying that he was bent on their salvation; and we
now know from his diaries that he returned from
these nocturnal peregrinations to flagellate himself.
Well, that's interesting to know, but it does not alter our picture of a very great statesman.
And all of this bringing down of god into the
political arena takes place in a country in which
Thomas Jefferson said that it did not matter to
him if his neighbor believed in one god or in 20,
since it neither broke his leg nor picked his pocket.
And that is exactly the trouble: in one god or in
20-and the 20 can be stretched to 20 million, as
everyone thinks that he can find god within himself, or can speak to him from a clod of earth in
Georgia or in a-pad in California.
o
N
Q
it even more vividly to me: "Apart from our politicians, that's one reason why we create new
churches every decade. It was Economics in the
1930's; Psychology in the 1940's; Management in
the 1950's; Scciology in the 1960's .... ," and then
he hesitated.
"And
in the 1970's?"
I asked.
"
,.
[source: Austin American Statesman, 6/20176]
ical Protestants, Jimmy Carter's natural constitu- ency. They are to be found not only in the "Bible
Belt," south of the Mason-Dixon Line, but all over
the United States, in small towns and large cities.
The lowest estimate of their numbers is 31 million;
a plausible figure is 40 million-two-thirds
of all
white Protestants. Not all are Democrats; many
outside the South are Republicans. Everywhere
one can find them on the radio, the religious evangelists and the missionaries. They are always upbeat, full of grace and smiles, happy beyond the
expectations of more hardened secular folk. They
believe they have experienced grace.
Not all politicians, even when they try, can
touch the inner springs of this evangelical sensibility. When Richard Nixon went to Nashville, it felt
wrong. When he spoke to friendly crowds in North
Carolina, he came somehow as a stranger, affirming
words that weren't his. native tongue. But when
Jimmy Carter speaks, millions of Protestant Americans experience a sudden smack of recognition.
He's for real. He's them, in their idealized selves.
Carter's role for evangelical Christians may
be rather like John F. Kennedy's for Catholics.
Coming out of South Bostin, Kerinedy had wealth
and education and class; he was a polished version
of their dreams. His words echoed their harsh experience ("Iife is unfair"),
but in his voice they
heard their own accent and in their hearts they saw
themselves as they would like to be.
Carter seems to understand very well-perhaps too well-this
symbolic importance of the
presidency. What most Americans want primarily
(though not solely) in a President is a.person they
can look to and say: "He represents me. He is us."
The President personifies the nation.
Kennedy proved that a Catholic could execute the public symbols in a credible way, even in
a fresh, exciting way. (Norman Mailer said it felt
like electing an outlaw sheriff.) In the same sense,
electing Jimmy Carter President would be a little
like electing an outsider, one who is like Andrew
Jackson was in his special distance from Virginia
and Massachusetts. Yet Carter's rhetoric and manner have a ring of familiarity and, given the demo-graphics, a ring of plausibility.
For if America is a Protestant nation-and
its self-understanding, reinforced especially. by the
symbolism of this Bicentennial year, is preeminently Protestant-it
is not a Puritan New England nation; it is an evangelical nation. The symbolic tradition on which Carter draws so effectively is one of
five major symbol systems among American Protestants.
November 1976/American
Atheist - 11
November
19761 American
Atheist
- 12
books and Hal Lindsay's and many others were seIling at hundreds of thousands of copies per title.
The Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the
prayer meetings of concerned political figures in
Washington spread far more widely and more deeply than an occasionally curious press could really
probe.
A third great Protestant tradition is that of
the denominations
of the Midwest. Most influenced by the Lutherans (German and Scandinavian) and by the more formal Calvinism of the
Dutch and German reform traditions, the Midwestern Protestant symbols differ from both Northeastern and Southern symbols. Dwight Eisenhower,
Hubert Humphrey, Gerald Ford, Harold Hughes,
Warren Harding, such men exemplify a religion of
pragmatic
salesmanship and optimism=a
little
more proper and more decorous than, not quite so
experiential
as, the Southern symbols. Norman
Rockwell is not Nashville.
Scandinavian Protestants like Henry Jackson
also have their own style, a little on the non-glamorous, serious, solid side. Somber Lutheran traditions are strong (the mood of fngmar Bergman's
films). Distrust of flashiness and a sense for order
are high on the list of approved qualities. Eric Sevareid is our most public model of the style. Scandinavians admire reserve and taciturnity,
seriousness and hard work. The symbolic world of rural
Minnesota is not like that of rural Georgia. Jackson's Protestantism is not like Carter's. It is equally
unfamiliar on the national stage.
The fourth tradition is that of the "Prairie
Purifiers"---William Jennings Bryan, George,McGovern, Fred Harris, Ramsey Clark-who want to purify the nation's soul and to bring it back to its
ideals. Both populism and civic-religious "Awakenings" mark this tradition.
Fifth come the many
black traditions, most of which have shared roots
in the second, evangelical white tradition.
The attractive featu res of the evangel icaI
symbol system are many: Bill Movers and Jimmy
Carter have a similar charm. There is also an underlying tough moral passion: Joseph Duffey Tom
'Yicker, Willie Morris, Morris Dees and many other
liberals from the South have blazed a trail for Jimmy Carter.
In this symbol system the moral dimension
of human life has a high salience. The "morality"
of issues figures prominently as an attraction. The
moral values most confidently praised are those of
intimate human relations: honesty, compassion,
love,. gentleness, courtesy, decency. The eye looks
for signs of these in its search for alliances , for rec-
WI
>0"''''-
The Democratic Party in the Northern industrial states is very largely Cathol ic, Jewish and
Black. All three cultural traditions are justifiably a
little suspicious of too much morality from Protestant political leaders. ("Protestant"
and "moral"
are almost synonyms in American discourse.)
. Blacks more than Catholics and Jews are familiar
with the Carter symbolic style; they, too, are evangelical, Protestant and Southern in tradition. Carter awakens Blacks, too, in recoqnitiorn But Catholics and Jews-and some Protestants as well-have
very hard-headed fears about th is "outsider":
Can Carter be counted on in foreign policy?
Is his mind firm enough? Or will he use moral language as a cover for retreat to isolationism? To have
supported the war in Vietnam was not a liberal
position, but neither was it dishonorable. Why does
Carter now describe his support then as due to a
"rational ization
we' affl icted ourselves with?"
Can Carter be counted on to ease racial ten_ sions in Northern cities? Such cities are not monocultural like Southern cities, divided chiefly by
race, but pluralistic and teeming with conflicting
lines of interest, power and force. Not only Blacks
are concentrated; so also is each ethnic group. Bus. ing is not the same sort of issue in the North as in
the South; it is more bitter, perceived as more unfair. Is Carter for unions or against them, and in
what ways? (The evangelical tradition has a partly
anti-union historv.)
November 1976/American
Atheist - 14
II
Today,
of "miracles"
occasions.
Asked if people in the campaign were fearfu I that her work might be considered pol itically
harmful, Stapleton replies, "Of course!" She adds,
"Since Jimmy's not concerned about it, I'm not">
although she frequently states, with a laugh, "Jimmy is so busy he has no idea of what I really do.
He thinks I'm a Billy Graham evangelist." She feels
certain, however, that he would be "pleasantly
surprised."
In addition to those seeking marital or child
rearing help, Stapleton counsels the outcasts from
society and most churches-homosexuals,
drug addicts, alcohol ics, prostitutes and sexual perverts.
November
1976/ American
Atheist
- 15
---,...-------
"
'---
November 1976/American
Atheist - 17
1976/ American
Atheist
- 18
pletely there yet," she can. "So what I'm doing for
others. I can relate. Even in an airport, I have the
greatest ministry. I can pick up hurt."
Stapleton's private world has been engulfed
by her ministry and her travels. Her pleasant Rambler shows the worn signs of a busy family. She
sighs that they are going to have to find the time to
get it repainted.
Her relationship
with her children seems
warm--she squeals with del ight when Scotty, a biochemistry college major, and his girlfriend stop by
on a Sunday afternoon. Her daughter, Patti, who is
getting married in May, is her secretary.
Her husband takes a back seat manager's
role, seemingly cheerfully, and putts golf balls on
the den shag rug as she gives interviews. She says
frankly that there were 17 "noncommunicating"
years and an "awful lot of problems" but that the
last four years have been 'wonderful.'
She and her husband have formed her ministry into a nonprofit organization called "Behold,
Inc. " She gets no salary and contributions
go into
travel and speaking expenses.
For years, Ruth Carter Stapleton kept her
religious political life separate, even as she worked
in her brother's campaigns for governor.
It was partly to keep her separate 'dentitv.
"But also, so many who are religious look at politics as ugly and dirty and so many in politics look
at deep religion as something weird. I would like
to bridge that gap."
.".
Anonymity
is now fading, but she doesn't
seem to mind, and is fascinated by the trappings cf
national campaigning. She has turned the press section of Carter's plane into a confessional at times,
talking to reporters about their problems.
Looking serene, she says, "I am now so happy in my new work. You' know how Jimmy believes he is going to be President? Well, I am the
same-I am so sound in my theology, in my psych, oloqical presentation."
white
Event
Jimmy Carter says "a deeply profound religious experience that changed my life dramatically" in 1967 has given him "an inner peace" that
guides him in politics.
of some experiences I had that I won't describe in. volving personal witnessing in states outside of
Georgia among people who were very unfortunate
and who did not speak English, and otherwise, I
came to realize that my Christian life, which I had
always professed to be pre-eminent, had really
been a secondary interest in my life.
"And I formed a very close, intimate personal relationship with god, through Christ, that has
given me a great deal of peace, equanimity and
the ability to accept difficulty without unnecessarily being disturbed, and also an inclination on a
continuing basis to ask god's guidance in my life.
"It was not a profound stroke of miracle.
It wasn't a voice of god from heaven. It was not
anything of that kind. It wasn't mysterious. It
might have been the same kind of experience as
millions of people have who do become Christians
in a deeply personal way."
Carter said that "1 don't think god is going
to make me be President by any means. But what-
,,,,)
~.)
~\~3
--
He continued his second and ultimately successful quest for the governorship at the time, he
said.
In the praying room off his governor's office, he said, "There was no wave of revelation that
came over me, no blind flashing of light or voices
of god or anything. I just had a quiet feeling thatwas reassuring. But I wouldn't want it to be connoted as a mystical set of events. It's a typical experience among Christians."
[source; Washington Post, 3/21/76]
It was probably accidental, but god has become an issue in the presidential elections. Jimmy
Carter, who is now known as "front-runner,"
has
admitted to having a very close relationship to god.
he have any
favorites?"
I asked.
"Has
politics?"
"Yes, he has. There have been some supporters of presidential candidates who have claimed
that their man is closer to god than any of the opponents, but we have never authorized anyone to
make this claim. God feels whomever the American
people want to elect is their own business. All he
asks is if things don't turn out as they were expected, that the voters don't blame him."
I asked the Angel Gabriel if this had happened in the past.
makes. Americans have a tendency to blame everything that goes wrong in the world on god. But he
never gets credit when things go right."
"And this upsets him?"
"He has feelings, too."
[source:
[source:
Art Buchwald,
Seattle
Post-Intelligencer,
syndicated
columnist)
6/7/76)
'.~~~~'
';~::>~1
..
second spot?'
GOOfgiLAWS
COME
AHEAD
-SAYS CARTER
OF
MAN'S
His commonts came in a brief news conference following a Sunday school lesson about a
teaching that Christians should respect and obey
"No comment."
November
1976/American
Atheist
- 21
civil authorities
by god.
Carter, who often speaks publicly of his religious convictions, did not give any examples of
how his interpretation of the biblical text might
apply to contemporary issues.
He cited a passage from the Book of Romans, King James version, which reads:
"Let every soul be subject unto the higher
powers. For there is no power but of god; the
powers that be are ordained of god.
Jimmy Carter's open espousal of his Christian beliefs in the 1976 Presidential campaign has
raised the issue of religion's place in politics more
arrestingly than it has been raised in any Presidential race since John F. Kennedy's in 1960.
In Mr. Kennedy's case the question was whether a Roman Catholic could be elected and what
the consequences would be for relations between
church and state.
Madalyn O'Hair got a plug on Walter Cronkite's Democratic Convention broadcast at 11 :25
p.m., Houston TV channel eleven on 7/14/76Houston time.
Jimmy Carter had talked to a priest and
Catholic women about abortion. Carter had a Negro Baptist preacher, preach the benediction at this
closing part of the Democratic Convention in N. Y.
The TV camera then switched to Walter Cronkite
sitting high above the convention floor below.
At this time Cronkite said, over the national
television network hook-up.:
"Jimmy Carter has discussed and talked to
and about most everything concerning religion
EXCEPT! Madalyn O'Hair the Atheist. Maybe he
should have her on too."
November 1976/American Atheist 22
C~MJt6ed
eA1ifefL(
o.{-
P(OMIS~O('1
~Oie5/
00
,
/'
'I
Atheist - 23
five
Methodist-oriented
mid-South, the heavily Lutheran upper Midwest, Mormon Utah and the nongeographical urban "pluralist"
community.
Mr. Carter would presumably have trouble only in the last
area because of its secularist tendencies,
Dr.
Marty bel ieves.
Mr. Carter says his decision to talk about his
convictions in the midst of the campaign came after a prayerful thought.
"When the media began to emphasize my beliefs," he said in an interview on his last day of
campaigning in New York, "1 did not know how to
deal with it; whether to answer the questions or
say I didn't have a comment."
years I was Governor in the seclusion of a little private room than all the rest of my life put togeth. er." But he disavows all contentions that his prayer
life has experienced the miraculous.
There has been no serious challenge to Mr.
Carter's sincerity or his spiritual credibility. Most
uneasiness appears to stem from a fear that an
evangelically minded President might use his power
to advance his beliefs or violate the separation of
church and state.
Interest in religion's role in politics was generated during the Nixon Administration when President Nixon had regular Sunday morning services
in the White House and frequently consulted with
Mr. Graham. Public debate over this and other
forms of civil religion has particularly stirred those
worried that public officials would manipulate religious symbols and language for personal advancement.
Mr. Carter's supporters
say that Baptists
have been in the forefront of struggles to maintain
a wall of separation between church and state and
that the candidate's
record shows nothing that
could raise any objections on this score.
"1 've never tried to use my position as a public official to promote by beliefs, and I never
wou Id," Mr. Carter said.
He has said that he believes personal example is the best way to influence others and that
matters such as abortion and premarital sex should
not be legislated against, though he opposes both
personally.
Mr. Carter also rejects any sugg';stion that he
has a mesiah complex.
"1 don't think god is going to make me President by any means," he said at a recent news conference. "But whatever I have as a responsibility
for the rest of my life, it will be with that infinite
personal cotinuinq relationship."
"resonates"
The
Hidden
November 1976/American
Atheist - 26
Religious
Majority
American
A Nation
Program 411
KLBJ Radio
Atheist
NOT
Under
18 September 1976
Austin, Texas
Hello there,
This is Madalyn Murray O'Hair,
Atheist, back to talk with you again.
American
Radio
The
Series
Christian
God
1976/American
Atheist
- 27
Founding Fathers had become completely disenchanted with each colony's insistence upon a particular sect established anti supported financially by
tax funds and the body politic. Thus arose the idea
called "disestabl ishment," which held that each
sect should support itself and not be legally, politically, and financially "established" as the only official religion in a particular state. This move was
well received by minority religious groups, which
desired to see pluralism or a number of diverse
sectarian groups legally acceptable in each state.
The Baptists, for example, fought long and hard
to dissuade the new state legislatures from continuing to recognize legally only the Anglican (or Episcopal) church, the Congregationalists, or any other
established church of the colonial era. The federal
leaders supported such efforts.
Virginia, the home of presidents, led the
way. Its Declaration of Rights, drafted in part by
James Madison and enacted June 12, 1776, advocated "free exercise of religion." An act later the
same year, which suspended payment of tithes or
church taxes, effectively disestablished the Church
of England, although final confirmation
of this
disestablishment awaited passage in 1786 of Jefferson's Act for Establishing Religious Freedom.
Jefferson's act, already noted, declared that, in
Virginia, "no man shall be compelled to frequent
or support any religious worship, place, or ministry
whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall
otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions of belief; but that all men shall be f-ree to profess... their opinion in matters of religion."
Similarly, the churches were disestablished
in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey in 1776
and in New York, North Carolina, and Georgia in
1777. South Carolina waited until 1790. In New
York and in most of the New England states, however, assistance to the churches' in the form of land
endowments did persist until 1800. Connecticut's
church, moreover, did not yield its grip until 1818,
when the new constitution
there decreed separation of church and state. In Massachusetts the constitutional
amending did not come until 1833.
The legislature of Virginia ventured beyond
disestablishment.
In the colonial period it had
granted lands to the towns in the state for the support of religious worship. After the Revolution,
reaction against the old established church eventually reached such a pitch that in 1799 and 1802
the legislature repealed the earlier grants. The state
seized not only the original lands but also all their
appurtenances-buildings,
church
furnishings,
books and even communion silver. It took everything that had belonged to the "Established
Church of Virginia" as of July 5, 1776. All properties were sold, and the proceeds used for public
purposes.
<,
The Virginia churches' bitter fight to have
their land restored is one of the most famous in
legal annals, and it led to a direct confontation between Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story and exPresident Thomas Jefferson. Story, speaking for
the Supreme Court in decisions handed down in
1815, held that Virginia's repealing acts were contrary to the Constitution
and hence void. "If the
legislature posessed the authority to make such a
grant and confirmation,"
he said, "it is very clear
to our minds that it vested an ... irrevocable title.
We have no knowledge of any authority or principle which could support the doctrine that a legislative grant is revocable .... Such a doctrine would
uproot the very foundations of almost all the land
titles in Virginia, and is' utterly inconsistent with
... the right of the citizens to the free enjoyment
of their property legally acquired." This part of
Story's argument-affirming
the rights and security of property and contract-is
perhaps sound, but
Story went dangerously on to declare that the
First Amendment, citing freedom of religion, was
actually proposed and adopted for the encouragement of Christianity.
His famous argument reads:
Every American colony, from its foundation to the revolution, ... did openly, by the whole
course of its law and institutions, support and sustain in some form the Christian religion; and almost invariably gave a peculiar sanction to some of
its fundamental doctrines ... Probably at the time
of the edootion of the Constitution, and of the
[first]
amendment to it. .. the geiferal if not the
universal sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state
.... The real object of the amendment was not to
countenance, much' less to advance, Mohometenism, or Judaism, or infidelity by prostrating Christianity, but to exclude all rivalry among Christian
sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical extablishment which would give to a hierarchy the
exclusive patronage of the national government.
Story later reaffirmed this opinion in another case, in which he wrote: "It is also said, and trutv. that the Christian rei igion is a part of the common law of Pennsylvania."
Jefferson was incensed by the interpretation
given by Story, and he wrote a memorandum
strongly disputing the accuracy of the maxim that
Christianity is a part of the common law. His study
is a careful historical and legal one. Later, in a letter to John Cartwright dated June 5, 1824, on the
subject of a book that Cartwright had written, Jef-
November
'/
1976/ American
Atheist
- 29
'
ferson wrote:
I was glad to find in your book a formal
contradiction at length, of the judicial usurpation
of legislative powers; for such the judges have
usurped in their repeated decisions that Christianity is a part of the common law. The proof of the
contrary, which you have adduced, is incontrovertible .... What a conspiracy
this, between
Church and State!
The disestablished churches did not give up
in any of the colonies and tried to rally their people wherever they could. Soon a fight developed
around their "incorporation"
in the new nation.
Incorporated
institutions
then were given unusual
rights, notably the power to levy a tax on the
members of their communities.
This provision was
an extension to the colonies (and thus the states)
of a right that had its beginning in the ecclesiastical corporations
of England. In order to finance
itself, the Episcopal church in Alexandria, Virginia,
tried to incorporate
through the U. S. House of
Representatives. James Madison, strongly believing
that churches should be self-supporting
through
free contributions,
vetoed the bill that would have
incorporated
the church, because he conceived it
as a violation
of the concept of separation of
church and state.
Nine years later, for
Virginia state constitutional
~
~
~
American Atheists convened in the Seventh
Annual National Convention meeting in New York
City, New York in 1976 laid upon The American
Atheist Centre the burden of raising money for
three federal law suits:
1) to compel the Treasury Department to
stop revenue sharing funds to states which support
religion through legislation.
2) to compel Health Education and Welfare
Department
to cut off funds (from Primary and
Secondary School Aid Act) to any school district, in any state, which commingles religion with
education.
UNDERSTAND
WORK
THAT
OF THE SOCIETY
FORTH,
THEREFORE,
EXEMPT
DONATION.
November
THE
1976/ American
Atheist
SOCIETY OF SEPARATIONISTS,
P.O.Box2117
Austin, TX 78768
LEGAL
BATTLES
OF SEPARATIONISTS
I ENCLOSE
AND
THE
OTHER
iJlUST BE CARRIED
AS MY TAX
eventually
,wili probVVe antic$100,000.
INC.
THE SOCIETY
OF SEPARATIONISTS,
Inc.
1. To stimulate and promote freedom of thought and inquiry concerning religious beliefs, creeds,
dogmas, tenets, rituals and practices.
2. To collect and disseminate information,
data and literature on all religions and promote
more thorough understanding of them, their origins and histories.
3. To advocate, labor for, and promote in all lawful ways, the complete and absolute separation
of state and church; and the establishment and maintenance of a thoroughly secular system of
education available to all.
4. To encourage the development and public acceptance of a humane ethical system, stressing
the mutual sympathy, understanding and interdependence of all people and the corresponding
responsibility of each, individually, in relation to society.
5. To develop and propagate a social philosophy in which man is the central figure who alone
must be the source of strength, progress and ideals for the well-being and happiness of humanity.
6. To promote
perpetuation
the study of the arts and sciences and of all problems affecting the maintenance,
and enrichment of human (and other) life.
7. To engage in such social, educational, legal and cultural activity as will be useful and beneficial
to members of this Society (of Separationists) and to society as a whole.
"Definitions"
The Society of Separationists, Inc., is a non-political, non-profit, educational, tax-exempt organization. Contributions to the Society are tax deductible for you. Our primary function is as an educational "watch dog" organization to preserve the precious and viable principal of separation of state and church. Membership is open to
those who are in accord with our "Aims and Purposes" as above. Membership dues is $12.00 per person per year.
An incident of membership is a monthly copy of "American Atheists Insider Newsletter". We are currently forming local chapters and membership in the National organization automatically gives you entrance to your local
chapter.
.
The Truth,
at last, Revealed
about
FREEDOM
UNDER SIEGE
by Madalyn
Organiz ed Religion
Murray O'Hair
Official
government
and church
figures
prove that churches have as their membership only
a minority
of our citizens. This books shows the
continuing
pressures that this minority
exerts on
the lives of the majority of Americans.
Dr. O'Hair deals with politics, not religion;
with separation of state and church, not Atheism.
This report shows how your treasured liberties are
slowly being eroded as the churches increase their
power over every aspect of American life, limiting
your freedom of choice and even your access to information regarding those choices.
..
Society of Separationists,
Texas 78767
I enclose
Please send me [ ] copy (les)
of FREEDOM UNDER SIEGE, at $8.95
.55 postage and handling
$9.50 per copy
or charge to my MASTERCHARGE
Card No.
BAN KAM E R ICAR 0 Card No.
...--
Expires,
Expires,
Name'
_
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Address,
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Signature
Apt. No.
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Date
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