Kentucky’s first line of defense against terrorism is their imaginary friend
3 December 2008 by Stardust
Anti-Terror Law Requires that God be Acknowledged
Under state law, God is Kentucky’s first line of defense against terrorism. The 2006 law organizing the state Office of Homeland Security lists its initial duty as “stressing the dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth.”
Specifically, Homeland Security is ordered to publicize God’s benevolent protection in its reports, and it must post a plaque at the entrance to the state Emergency Operations Center with an 88-word statement that begins, “The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God.”
State Rep. Tom Riner, a Southern Baptist minister, tucked the God provision into Homeland Security legislation as a floor amendment that lawmakers overwhelmingly approved two years ago.
While I can see that this can piss people off, and agree with the action of the lawsuit, I agree with Hemant Mehta that some of the accusations are going a bit too far.
The lawsuit that has been filed states:
Edwin Kagin, a Boone County lawyer and the national legal director of American Atheists, said he was appalled to read in the Herald-Leader last week that state law establishes praising God – and installing a plaque in God’s honor – as the first duty of the Homeland Security Office.
The state and federal constitutions both prohibit government from getting involved in religion, Kagin said Monday.
“This is one of the most outrageous things I’ve seen in 35 years of practicing law. It’s breathtakingly unconstitutional,” Kagin said.
But the reasoning some of us are having problems with and I find a wee bit embarrassing is as follows:
In the suit, American Atheists argues that Homeland Security should focus on public-safety threats rather than promote religion.
The suit notes that the federal and state homeland security agencies were created as a result of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by Muslim fundamentalists, and it refers to those attacks as “a faith-based initiative.”
The plaintiffs ask for the homeland security law to be stripped of its references to God. They also ask for monetary damages, claiming to have suffered sleeping disorders and “mental pain and anguish.”
“Plaintiffs also suffer anxiety from the belief that the existence of these unconstitutional laws suggest that their very safety as residents of Kentucky may be in the hands of fanatics, traitors or fools,” according to the suit.
I agree with the Friendly Atheist that suffering sleeping disorders, and mental pain and anguish, anxiety are going overboard and kind of silly. As Hemant says,
It seems foolish to ask for monetary damages for something like that. Hell, we’ve had President Bush at the helm for the past eight years — that’s much more cause for sleeplessness and anguish than God.
What do you all think? Most of our leaders have always believed in this hocus pocus and no one has ever claimed before to be losing any sleep over it. Have you?
3 December 2008, on 2:52 pm
I say remove the language referring to gawd from the law and take down the plaques, but the stuff about sleeping disorders and mental anguish just makes them sound like they’re trying to turn a buck and makes the rest of us look bad. It’s like that weird feeling when you realize you agree with someone whom you can’t stand otherwise.
3 December 2008, on 2:59 pm
It’s like that weird feeling when you realize you agree with someone whom you can’t stand otherwise.
That’s exactly what it feels like.
Now if we were being rounded up, tortured, burned at the stake, etc as in the Inquisition and witch hunts, then we can declare mental anguish, and we would definitely be losing sleep, but crying and whining like this looks as bad as the Xians who boo hoo persecution. (I should have added this into the boo-fucking-who category?
3 December 2008, on 3:40 pm
I suffer from anxiety (of the social disorder variety), and I know what suffering from it and having an attack attack feels like. I seriously doubt these people felt anxiety. Or perhaps they felt low grade anxiety.
I seriously doubt they were walking through a store and had their eyes darting all over the place and getting good looks at EVERYONE because being in public made them anxious, or that they had so many bouts of bad panic attacks they had to quit a job (I had to quit a dishwashing job because I’d have such bad panic attacks I couldn’t see straight).
3 December 2008, on 3:46 pm
I can understand how New Yorkers might not be able to sleep over a law like Kentucky has. I can see them being a little anxious about it if New York has a similar law.
3 December 2008, on 6:28 pm
AUM, I have panic disorder, so I agree with you that those named in the suit probably have never experienced a full-blown anxiety or panic attack. Asking for damages in this kind of suit is going too far.
If it flies, however, I’d like to file suit against the Baptist Church for giving me nightmares and anxiety as a child by threatening me and my family with going to hell after we died and being Left Behind (TM) after the cRapture. I’d also like to sue the Bush crime family for what they’ve done to me and this country. Finally, I’d like to sue every single one of those disgusting criminal fat-cat executives/Wall Street bastards for sucking the lifeblood out of our economy and leaving a rotting carcass behind. If hell actually existed and anyone deserved to spend at least a little time in it…
3 December 2008, on 6:34 pm
Lets be blunt, it’s extremely annoying to think that we have in our society people who believe in this type of supernaturalism. I am constantly disturbed knowing this.
3 December 2008, on 10:34 pm
I’m annoyed and angry about religious nuttery, but I have yet to lose sleep over it (although I did have religiously inspired night-mares when I was a believer/child.)
Even if I was suffering insomnia over the fact that some nuts insist on making as part of the public record the claim that their imaginary friend will protect them from a dirty-bomb, I can’t imagine seeking filthy lucre as compensation.
These atheists are going to have this entire suit thrown out simply because someone got greedy and overzealous. And I would hate to think some believer might return the favor and seek financial remunerations against atheists under a similar claim.
Shows that even us free-thinkers can be irrational from time to time
4 December 2008, on 12:27 pm
While the lawsuit does seem silly, I would bet the lawyer thought he had a better case if he could show mental or physical pain and anguish.
These people run and ruin our country and the world. I say we defund them by any means necessary. I don’t care how it looks, or how we win. We just need to win. That’s how their side does it, and we have to be equally vigilant. This is a fight for our rights and for living in a logical, functioning society.
They’ve killed MILLIONS AND BILLIONS of us. Taking a little of their money ain’t so bad.
4 December 2008, on 2:31 pm
Im with you totally. Leave the litigious greed to the theists. We need to hold rationality to everything we do, and its just not rational to receive monetary compensation for ‘emotional distress’.