Atheists Can Be Just As Obnoxious As Christians
June 14, 2013 in Blogs
By Mary Elizabeth Williams, Salon
Just because you’re in the right doesn’t mean you have to be a jerk about it. Today’s case in point: the battle going on right now in Florida’s Orange County over who gets to be the biggest loudmouth.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Central Florida Freethought Community had a perfectly valid point recently when they challenged the distribution of Bibles in the local high schools. Earlier this year, a Collier County judge ruled in favor of “passive” dissemination of the Bibles, allowing them to be laid out on tables for the taking. That’s a clearly stupid move; one that suggests the judge has zero grasp on the term “separation of church and state.” One does not leave Bibles willy-nilly around schools, any more than one leads a Christian prayer session in school — another battle the Freedom From Religion Foundation recently fought and won. (The victory was somewhat mitigated by a local valedictorian’s defiant recitation of the Lord’s Prayer during graduation anyway.)
But after “1,700 students left school with Bibles” in the wake of one of those “passive” distributions in 11 schools last winter, the atheist groups decided to make a point. They asked for permission to distribute some materials of their own, including books and pamphlets with titles including “An X-Rated Book,” “Jesus Is Dead” and “Why I Am Not a Muslim.” Which if I’m not mistaken is a douche move.
A district spokesman said that the groups were in fact permitted to distribute “a number of fliers critical of religion,” but drew the line at the more incendiary books and materials, arguing they “could cause a disruption.” David Williamson of Central Florida Free Thought Community told the local news station WFTV Thursday, “We had no intention of filing a lawsuit, and we are not interested in filing a lawsuit, but we have no other choice at this point.” They just couldn’t help it! In the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s statement Thursday, the organization acknowledged that “distribution …read more
Source: ALTERNET
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