As noted in James Randi’s weekly column, there’s apparently an interesting tidbit in Texas’s constitution:
Texas Constitution, Article 1 BILL OF RIGHTS, Section 4 RELIGIOUS TESTS:
“No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall any one be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being.”
Erm, isn’t this illegal?
Apparently this isn’t the only case, as noted on ReligiousTolerance.org. A free country, you bet!
About Dave Shevett
A wandering geek. Toys, shiny things, pursuits and distractions.
View all posts by Dave Shevett2 thoughts on “The wonders of Texas.”
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I dunno, is it?
Congress sure didn’t make that law….
The thing is, we have all sorts of laws still on the books that no one remembers..every so often, a power-hungry law enforcement figure revives them and then uses them to harass people. In Chicago, for instance, there are all sorts of city ordinances. One makes it an offense, punishable by a fine, to park a car in a driveway. Some cop enforced it, leading to complaints about him, and his response was “don’t pass the ordinance if you do not want it enforced.” The City Council being the City Council, it’s still on the books, although that cop got transferred to a different department.
This requirement was originally an act of religious tolerance, as it was intended to eliminate test acts, which were designed to exclude Catholics and nonconformist Protestants from office. The original Test Acts were in England (and then the UK), but a few colonies had them as well.
They should amend the Texas Constitution to get rid of this, but you (and Randi) are not getting the context behind this. (I’ve written to Randi, although the last time I did {when he erroneously said the Constitution referred to a Creator} I got no response or acknowledgement).