Faith Based Terror Fightin'

Two days ago I suggested that, should the South decide again to secede, we should let them go. Somewhere, some commenter wrote that we should retain this or that piece of Kentucky in our more perfect Union because it had bourbon or bluegrass or something.  And again I say, fuck no:

As an atheist and a Kentuckian, Edwin Hensley was rather put off to learn that the God he has spent decades not believing [in] had been put in charge of keeping the Bluegrass State safe from terrorism.

Turns out a stealthy legislative move by a Baptist preacher-turned-politician led to the passage of a 2006 bill requiring the state’s Office of Homeland Security to acknowledge formally that safety and security in the state “cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon almighty God.” The language in the bill only recently came to the public’s attention, leading Hensley and some like-minded Kentuckians to file a lawsuit against the state.

Quick, somebody call Chertoff and tell him Kentucky doesn’t need any more Homeland Security money.

So riled up are the atheists over this apparent squeezing together of church and state that the lawsuit resorts to name calling, claiming the plaintiffs fear “their very safety as residents of Kentucky may be in the hands of fanatics, traitor or fools.”

Or snake handlers.

One set of those hands belongs to Rep. David Floyd.

“No Christian minds being called a fanatic in the service of God,” said Floyd, who disagrees with the notion that the U.S. Constitution requires a “wall of separation” between church and state. “But the term ‘traitor or fool’? Well, this lawsuit is either constitutional or it’s personal. It would seem by the phrasing of the lawsuit that it’s personal.”

My head hurts.

And indeed, it is.

“We’re not trying to be nice,” said David Silverman, national spokesman for American Atheists, a national advocacy group that filed the suit on behalf of Hensley and nine other Kentuckians. “These people are breaking the law. They’re breaking the law knowingly. They are trying to get sued.”

The law in question also required the state’s homeland security office feature a plaque that reads, among other things, “Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh in vain.”

So fuck Kentucky.  Fuck the bluegrass and the whiskey.  Fuck Miss McConnell (not literally).  Please - do us all a favor and go away.

Kentucky Law Puts God in Charge of Security?  Atheists Appalled [Chicago Tribune]

Comments

[KKAllen]

Жжешь, дружищще))

[Lew Scannon]

Who needs Kentucky, especially since they've been hoarding all the God protection for themselves?

[mandt]

Жжешь, дружищще)) Oh yeah?

[Magical Shrimp]

Oh, how dare those athiests point out the illegal and stupid! It's like, they feel the need to pay attention to what's going on in their government or something.