The First Amendment and Atheists

It seems that Obama isn’t the only one in desperate need of a refresher course on the Constitution. Those wacky folks over at the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) are at it again. Now they want to remove yet another war memorial because it happens to have a cross on it.

The monument isn’t unconstitutional, folks. Congress didn’t make a law about it, or if it did, it was merely a recognition of its existence. The existence of the cross does not carry any legal power, and does not say that the Federal Government is going to enforce any laws based on the Christian faith. It is a memorial, and I’d wager that the soldiers it memorializes are all Christian. If they aren’t, then maybe the members of the other faiths that were excluded from the memorial have a case for having their symbols added to it.

The Constitution protects the rights of citizens to observe the faith of their choosing. While Thomas Jefferson did say something about people worshiping or not worshiping any number of gods, the First Amendment only prevents the Federal Government from becoming a theocratic body, or making any law that abridges the observation of any faith. That’s why we call it “Freedom of Religion”, by the way. Now, here’s a newsflash for the folks over at FFRF: Atheism is not a religion, period. If one is atheist, one does not believe there are any deities, and therefore does not observe any religion either. So, if the folks over at FFRF are offended by monuments to deities that they supposedly don’t believe in anyway, perhaps they don’t need to running about filing lawsuits about their discomfort. They need to be letting their fingers do the walking, and find themselves some good psychiatrists to help them with their obvious mental problems!

–Crossposted on Goldwater Gal–