Walnut Hill To Hold Program By Christian Evangelist for All 7th & 8th Graders

Yesterday I posted about explicitly Christian proselytizing being done by the principal at Walnut Hill Elementary/Middle School in Shreveport. Later in the day, in response to a complaint, the ACLU of Louisiana sent an open letter to the Caddo Parish Superintendent of Schools regarding those Establishment Clause violations at Walnut Hill.

This morning someone sent me a scan of the announcements distributed yesterday to Walnut Hill faculty:

The relevant part is that announcement at the bottom:

Apparently, Walnut Hill will be having a mandatory assembly for all 7th and 8th graders tomorrow morning during school hours. The assembly is being sponsored by a church and will feature a Christian evangelist/rapper. I suppose it's possible that Curvine Brewington will keep his message secular since he's performing at a public school. However, given what we have already seen from this school, I have my doubts.

UPDATE (4/2/15): I don't know how Curvine's presentation at Walnut Hill went yesterday. If anybody has a video, please post it.

According to Curvine's instagram on Wednesday he also "crashed lunch at 2 public schools." Apparently, those schools were Byrd and Southwood.

In the video on Curvine's instagram post, you can hear a bit of his lunchtime freestyling, which includes lyrics such as "Yeah, these guys, they love the Lord. I'm riding with them."

(I wonder if Greydon Square would be allowed to crash lunch at these schools and freestyle with the kids.)

Here's how Curvine's "homie" Zac Rowe instagrammed it:

"All in your schools with it! Lol Curvine will be throwing a concert for 1NE Student Ministry tonight! @ 6pm see you there !!"

Zac Rowe is a children's pastor at Word of God Ministries, the church that sponsored Curvine's visit to Walnut Hill.

Morehouse Parish School Officials (Allegedly) Didn't Do Their Homework

According to an article published yesterday on the Bastrop Enterprise website, the Morehouse Parish School System held a town hall meeting Friday night at which they discussed the Louisiana Legislature's passage this year of HB 660 which provides for public school officials to start the school day with a voluntary recitation of the Lord's Prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. Judging from the photo that accompanied the article, it appears that the officials who gathered at the town hall meeting also stood up, joined hands, and prayed.

There's a bit of a problem, though: The state legislature did not pass HB 660. After Rep. Katrina Jackson learned that her bill was obviously unconstitutional, she replaced HB 660 with HB 724. Both bills dealt with school prayer, but there were major differences. HB 724, which did become law, authorizes school authorities to permit public school students to gather for prayer before or after school or at any non-instructional time during the school day and provides for attendance by school employees, parents, and persons from the community under certain circumstances.

HB 724 does not seem to have really made any change in the law. Everything that the new law authorizes and provides for was already allowed under existing law. So far as I can tell, after Rep. Jackson learned that her original bill was unconstitutional, she felt like she had to introduce some kind of school prayer bill, so she introduced a bill that outlined the boundaries of what school officials could already do about school prayer. Then, she pretended that her bill actually changed things.

When HB 724 passed I was concerned that some school officials might misinterpret the new law and think that it allowed something more than it claims to allow. I was also worried that a bill that seems to encourage school officials to go right up to the Establishment Clause line might result in some over-zealous officials crossing that line.

I did not expect school officials to be so ignorant of the law that they don't even know which bill actually became law.

I thought this might be a reporter's mistake, rather than a mistake by the Morehouse Parish school officials, so I called Dee Tubbs, the editor of the Bastrop Enterprise. She told me that she did not attend the town hall meeting, but she confirmed that a flyer promoting the meeting did cite HB 660 as the bill that was passed and that would be discussed. Ms. Tubbs wrote an article last month about HB 724 being signed into law, so she knows the difference between the two bills. However, an article she wrote more recently announcing the Friday town hall meeting incorrectly says HB 660 was signed into law. She told me that she would have the story corrected and let Morehouse Parish School Superintendent Dr. George Noflin, Jr. know that his office had made a mistake in their press release. I also emailed Meghan Morris, the writer of yesterday's article, but have not gotten a response.

I called the superintendent's office, but he was out. I left my name and number and he is supposed to call me back. If I get any clarification of just how confused the Morehouse school officials are, I'll post an update.

There are a few more points worth making here:

Yesterday's article quotes Morehouse Parish School Board President Tamika Ferrell as saying, "We are excited to have open prayer back in schools."

It's difficult to know what to make of Ms. Ferrell's statement since I can't be sure whether she mistakenly believes that the law previously required students who pray at school to do so surreptitiously or if by "open prayer" she means a school-directed recitation of the Lord's Prayer.

Superintendent Noflin is quoted as saying, "Participation is voluntary and children are to be informed that this is not to influence them to join any organizations, such as Baptist or Methodist."

That quote raises a red flag because it could indicate that Dr. Noflin is one of those people who thinks that the Establishment Clause only prohibits the government from favoring one Christian denomination over another Christian denomination, but allows the government to favor Christianity over other religions or to favor religion over irreligion. If I speak to Dr. Noflin, I'll try to clarify his opinion on that question.

Finally, I must point out that the Morehouse Parish School System was in the news a little over two years ago when Bastrop High School graduating senior Damon Fowler asked the school to refrain from sponsoring prayer as a part of the graduation ceremony.

***UPDATE***
Dr. Noflin called me back. He said that the bill discussed at the town hall meeting was HB 724, not HB 660. He said the newspaper made a mistake and he would ask the newspaper to correct the mistake. I asked him to clarify his position regarding the "Baptist or Methodist" quote I mentioned above. He said he did not think that government could legally favor Christianity over a non-Christian religion nor religion over irreligion. He said he chose "Baptist" and "Methodist" as examples based on who was present at the town hall meeting (he said the prayer was led by someone from a local Baptist church), but that he might have chosen his terms differently if a Buddhist or an atheist had been in the audience and he had known they were present. In our conversation he used the terms "Buddhist" and "atheist" on his own. I didn't ask what he would have done if a Buddhist or atheist had been present. Dr. Noflin seemed like a nice, reasonable man and he called me back fairly promptly. Since I really can't be sure how to apportion fault between the school system and the newspaper, I'm amending the title of this blog post with a parenthetical. Also, just in case the Bastrop Enterprise article goes offline at some point, I want to note here that the article goes into much detail describing the substance of HB 660 and its Lord's Prayer provisions and how it was now law, so someone made a mistake that goes beyond merely citing the wrong bill number.

Why shouldn't atheists in the U.S. military be allowed their own chaplains?

Last month Rep. Rob Andrews offered an amendment to the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act that would have provided for the appointment as officers in the Chaplain Corps of "persons who are certified or ordained by non-theistic organizations and institutions, such as humanist, ethical culturalist, or atheist" so that those non-theistic chaplains would be "available to provide guidance and counsel to members of the armed forces who are atheist, agnostic, or belong to no organized faith group."

It was a very sensible idea intended to accommodate a quickly growing demographic group. The reasoning was, "There are atheists serving in the U.S. military. Why should they be denied the same support currently provided to Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus serving in the U.S. military?"

There are U.S. military personnel requesting that support. There are qualified people wanting to serve the U.S. military as non-theistic chaplains. There are long-standing organizations, such as the Humanist Society and the American Ethical Union, that could provide certification for non-theistic chaplain candidates.

Some countries, including the Netherlands and Belgium, already have humanist chaplains in their armed forces.

Some universities, including Harvard and Stanford, now have full-time humanist chaplains.

So, why not allow humanist chaplains in the U.S. military?

A couple of Congressmen thought they had some good arguments against the amendment.

Rep. Mike Conaway said, "They don't believe anything. I can't imagine an atheist accompanying a notification team as they go into some family's home to let them have the worst news of their life and this guy says, 'You know, that's it - your son's just worms, I mean, worm food."

Rep. John Fleming said, "This I think would make a mockery of the chaplaincy. The last thing in the world we would want to see was a young soldier who may be dying and they're at a field hospital and the chaplain is standing over that person saying to them, 'If you die here, there is no hope for you in the future."

First, I'll address Rep. Conaway's claim that atheists don't believe in anything:

Atheists don't believe in gods. That doesn't mean they don't believe in anything. Atheists have belief systems (such as humanism) that are as developed as those of theists. Those belief systems deal with the big questions, like how to live an ethical life, how to find meaning in life, how to live a happy life, and how to cope with the deaths of the people you love and how to bravely face your own death.

Conaway's statement that an atheist chaplain would tell grieving parents that their son is "worm food" is astounding when you consider that that is almost exactly the same term that Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich (a Christian) used to describe Pat Tillman (an atheist) after the Tillman family questioned the findings of the investigations the military made into Tillman's death.

Fleming's comment neglects the fact that thousands of U.S. military personnel are atheists. A young solider who may be dying at a field hospital deserves access to a chaplain who can give that soldier care consistent with the soldier's religious viewpoint. If the soldier does not believe in an afterlife, then a chaplain who tries to comfort the soldier with words about heaven would be as useless (and, possibly, as harmful) as a chaplain who tried to comfort a dying Jewish soldier with words about the importance of accepting Christ.

In the scenario that Fleming described, the religious views of the soldier should be paramount, not those of the chaplain. Non-theistic chaplains would be prepared to serve soldiers whose needs are now being neglected.

The House Armed Services Committee voted down Rep. Andrews' amendment, 43-18.

Rep. Andrews' amendment was later considered by the full House, where it was voted down 274-150.

Not content with that, Rep. Fleming introduced his own proposal that would, according to Fleming, prohibit the military from appointing atheist or humanist chaplains. (It's questionable whether Fleming's amendment would actually do anything since it only prevents funds from being used to appoint chaplains without an endorsing agency. Fleming's amendment doesn't seem to do anything to prevent non-theistic groups from being recognized as endorsing agencies, though. So far as I can tell, this amendment was just grandstanding intended to demonstrate that Fleming really doesn't like atheists.) It passed the full House earlier this week in a vote of 253-173.

Fleming dismissed the need for non-theistic chaplains by pointing out that less than one percent of service members identify themselves as "atheists." However, that number of self-identified atheists is larger than the number of Jews, the number of Buddhists, the number of Muslims, and the number of Hindus in the U.S. military. Yet, all those other groups have their own chaplains in the military.

Over 22% of U.S. military personnel are listed as "No Religious Preference." A good percentage of them are probably atheists. Some atheists choose to remain vague about their lack of belief in deities in order to avoid hostility from the religious majority. Also, it is very well-documented that some recruiters will put "No Rel Pref" on a recruit's paperwork even when the recruit clearly asked to be listed "Atheist." (That's a serious matter because listing oneself as "No Rel Pref" when "Atheist" would be more accurate can create problems for the family if something tragic does happen.)

I've witnessed an even more severe example of a recruiter overriding a recruit's religious identification request. When I was 19 I considered joining the Louisiana National Guard. While meeting with the recruiter one day, I overheard him helping a recruit with the paperwork. That recruit was actually a Marine who, after completing his active-duty service, was transferring to the National Guard. The recruiter asked the Marine what his religious preference was. The Marine said, "None." The recruiter paused and then said, "I'm going to make you a Baptist." Then, the recruiter wrote something (presumably "Baptist") on the Marine's paperwork. The National Guard recruiter asked, "Did the Marines let you get away with that?" The Marine said that sometimes they did.

Jeff Sadow, a blogger and assistant professor of political science at LSU-Shreveport, posted earlier today in support of Fleming's ban on non-theistic chaplains. Sadow cited the military oath as an additional reason why atheist chaplains would be inappropriate:

"And the idea also directly contradicts the very oaths by which members of the military take at enlistment or commissioning, both of which end in the sentence 'So help me God.' While polytheist members may expand the concept of 'God' to fit their views, nonbelievers may discount that portion of their oath as an appeal to fiction, yet the military with the presence of the phrase certainly takes it seriously. So it makes no sense in a procedural way to say there can be nonreligious spiritual guides when the institution itself ordains that all its members attest to belief in a spiritual being(s)/presence of some kind. To be consistent, it would first have to remove from the oaths that phrase before adding in 'chaplains' who guide without reference to a spiritual force."

Prof. Sadow is, apparently, unaware that the phrase "So help me God" is optional in the military oath. Those taking the oath don't have to say "So help me God" and they can cross out the phrase before signing the printed version of the oath.

Sadow also says that atheists in the military who need the support that an atheist chaplain could provide should, instead, seek the help of a non-chaplain counselor. In response to similar arguments made by other opponents of atheist chaplains, Edwina Rogers, executive director of the Secular Coalition for America pointed out that seeking psychiatric help, as opposed to the help of a chaplain, can stigmatize a service member and hurt his military career. On that same point, Rep. Andrews said, "Going to a mental health professional is a choice that is laden with risk and controversy for a member of the service. Going to a faith advisor is not."

Humanist and atheist veterans can be buried in national cemeteries under headstones bearing emblems of their belief systems, but they can't be provided access to a chaplain affiliated with their belief system while they are actually serving in the military. Would it really hurt everyone else so much if non-theistic service members were given that benefit?

Orleans Parish School Board Vice President Opposes Separation of Church and State

At last week's meeting of the Orleans Parish School Board during a discussion of the board's anti-bullying policy, a spectator asked School Board Vice President Leslie Ellison whether she believed in the separation of church and state. Ellison's response was, "There is no such thing."

In the comments section of the Times-Picayune article reporting on that meeting, Danielle Dreilinger, who wrote the article, added a public statement that she had received from School Board VP Ellison's office regarding Ellison's quoted disavowal of the separation of church and state:

"The entire notion of such a separation was taken from a letter--not policy or legislation-- written by President Thomas Jefferson in the 1800s. In this letter, he noted that the religious freedoms and rights granted to citizens in the U.S. Constitution would build a 'wall of separation between Church and State,' which would protect religion from governmental interference and not the opposite. Since that time, however, the original reference to the separation of Church and State has been taken out of context and has become an issue of confusion and debate. The truth is that the separation of Church and State does not exist constitutionally. It does not exist in the U.S. constitution or the Louisiana constitution. I took and continue to uphold a constitutional oath of office."
 -- Leslie Ellison, Vice President, Orleans Parish School Board, District 4

So, Ellison had the opportunity to study the issue (by consulting with the school board attorney, checking Wikipedia, asking a 9th grade civics student, whatever) and correct her mistake, but instead she decided to double-down on her public ignorance.

Here's what Thomas Jefferson wrote in his letter to the Danbury Baptists:

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties."

In his letter Jefferson wasn't coming up with a new "notion." He was explaining what the First Amendment did.

There can be reasonable disagreement about what the separation of church and state requires, but there is no reasonable disagreement about whether the Constitution requires the separation of church and state.

Thomas Jefferson was, of course, not just any old letter-writer. He was one of the main Founding Fathers. Chief Justice of the United States Morrison Waite recognized that in 1879 when he quoted Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists (including the part about the First Amendment "building a wall of separation between Church & State) in the Court's majority opinion in Reynolds v. United States. Regarding that quote, Chief Justice Waite wrote, "Coming as this does from an acknowledged leader of the advocates of the measure, it may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the amendment thus secured."

In the 1947 Supreme Court case of Everson v. Board of Education, both the majority opinion by Justice Hugo Black and the dissenting opinion by Justice Wiley Rutledge agreed that the First Amendment required the separation of church and state.

If any one person can be credited with authorship of the First Amendment, it would be James Madison. In the document that historians call his "Detached Memorandum" (in which, by the way, he declared his opposition to the hiring of Congressional chaplains at public expense on the grounds that the practice violated the First Amendment), Madison wrote: "Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Govt in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history.” (Okay, Madison called it separation between religion and government instead of separation of church and state, but, if anything, that language makes the point even more strongly.)

Claiming that there is no constitutional guarantee of the separation of church and state because the phrase "separation of church and state" does not appear in the Constitution is like saying that there is no constitutional guarantee of a fair trial because the term "fair trial" does not appear in the Constitution.

It's a ridiculous idea that relies on hyperliteralism to the exclusion of the historical record, legal reasoning, common sense, and basic logic. That it's been endorsed by a major figure in one of Louisiana's largest school systems reveals something important about what's wrong with pubic education in this state.

Mark Twain wrote, "In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards." Leslie Ellison is almost making me a believer.

Cops, Marine Drill Instructors, Impressionable Kids, and Religion: What could go wrong?

The Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Office (BPSO) sponsors and administers a Young Marines program which is intended to promote the “mental, moral and physical development of its young recruits.” These recruits are boys and girls between the ages of 8 and 18.

Here’s a description of the Young Marines from the program’s page on the BPSO website:

Upon joining the Young Marines, each recruit will undergo basic recruit training for a minimum of 26 hours. During this time, the youth will have the opportunity to learn military history, customs and courtesies, close order drill, physical fitness, rank structure and other subjects pertaining to life skills. Most importantly, the youth will learn to bond and relate with other young recruits and the opportunity to interact with caring adult mentors that are committed to providing them with a safe place to develop and grow with special emphasis on the love of God and fidelity to our country.

The “Young Marine Obligation” states:

From this day forward, I sincerely  promise, I will set an example for all other youth to follow and I shall never do anything that  would bring disgrace or dishonor upon God, my Country and its flag, my parents, myself or the  Young Marines. These I will honor and respect in a manner that will reflect credit upon them and myself. Semper Fidelis.

The “Young Marine Creed” instructs the child participants:

1. Obey my parents and all others in charge of me whether young or old.

2. Keep myself neat at all times without other people telling me to.

3. Keep myself clean in mind by attending the church of my faith.

4. Keep my mind alert to learn in school, at home, or at play.

5. Remember having self-discipline will enable me to control my body and mind in case of an emergency.

The BPSO Young Marines Program (which is “instructed by a Bossier Parish Deputy, who is a former U.S. Marine, and several active U.S. Marine volunteers”) also includes a “voluntary” prayer component.

A few months ago Bossier Sheriff Julian Whittington had his request for federal funding for the program denied after he refused to remove the prayer component from the program.

On May 23 Whittington sent a letter to Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal complaining about the loss of funding. Whittington’s letter begins:

As a Christian, Sheriff and American citizen, I am writing you to express my frustration and concern over the persistent aggression and infringement of our religious freedoms which have been imposed upon the law enforcement grant programs, specifically related to the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement (LCLE).

Funding for some important programs has hit a road block due to the mere mention of God and the use of voluntary prayer. This appalling situation arose when someone in the Department of Justice, Office of Civil Rights, in Washington, D.C. objected.

On the Fourth of July, Whittington, Jindal, country music singer Lee Greenwood, and others gathered for an “In God We Trust” rally to protest the loss of those federal funds.

Whittington seems to think that simply foregoing those federal funds will mean he is no longer bound by the Establishment Clause. Of course, that’s not the case. If any proper party filed a lawsuit over the BPSO Young Marine Program’s religious content, the lawsuit would almost surely be successful. The legal issues would be very similar to those involved in cases dealing with the promotion of religion by public schools.

At his rally Sheriff Whittington declared:

We are a Christian nation based on Christian ideals and the very idea of the mention of God or voluntary prayer is somehow prohibited and offensive is just as upsetting to them as it is to me.

Here’s what Bobby Jindal had to say about all this:

The federal government is treating prayer as if it is something you can catch, as if it’s contagious. There are many things I worry about when it comes to my three children, but never have I worried they were getting too much prayer. … The First Amendment guarantees us freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. It was written to protect people of faith from government officials, and we are going to hold on to that freedom.

I have to wonder whether Jindal might worry about how much prayer his three children were getting if they were praying to a deity that the Jindals don’t believe in. In any case, I don’t worry about how much prayer Bobby Jindal’s children get, either.  That’s none of my business. That’s a matter that should be left to the Jindal family. However, when Jindal or Whittington or any other government official decides that it’s okay for them to use their government jobs to push their religion on other people’s children, then I start worrying.

As someone who was raised Hindu, Bobby Jindal must be aware that oaths describing obligations to “God” and instructions to attend “church” are not even inclusive of all “people of faith.”

I’m not sure if Jindal is sincerely acting with the zeal of the convert or if he is just a shamelessly needy and power-craving politician who is pandering to the crowd. Both of those things may be true.

Could Baker, La., Get Its Own Atheist Monument?

In 2009 former City Councilman A.T. Furr paid to have a Ten Commandments monument placed in Veterans Plaza, a city-owned park in Baker, Louisiana. The Baker City Council approved the placement, even though their city attorney advised that it was illegal. Regarding the placement of the monument in a city park, Mayor Harold Rideau said, “We’re a Christian-based community.”

That was not the City of Baker’s first brush with theocracy. In 2004 a city councilman tried to ban Halloween. In proposing the anti-Halloween ordinance, Councilman Fred Russell said during a city council meeting, “We are a Christian city. Jesus is lord over Baker.” Speaking in favor of the proposed ban, Mayor Rideau said, “That’s one day I don’t support. It’s not really a day you want to celebrate as a Christian.” The council did not enact the ordinance. Clearly, the majority of the council were either Satanists or people who didn’t want to force their religious opinions on the whole city. I’m not sure what would later possess them to approve the unconstitutional display of the Ten Commandments in a city park.

I followed the Baker Decalogue story four years ago, but I never heard whether anyone sued to have the monument removed from city property. I was near Baker earlier this month, so I stopped by to check it out. Apparently, nobody sued.

The monument is still there and is even more prominently displayed than I had realized. Resting on a stand placed directly behind the center of the “Veterans Plaza” sign, the concrete Ten Commandments hang almost over the top of the park name. On the plaza are a flag pole, monuments for the different branches of the U.S. military, and several stone benches. Each bench is engraved with the name of a different organization (presumably the business or group that sponsored the bench).

The park is also directly across the street from a public high school.

Nearby I saw a sign promoting the “Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast.” There’s also a sign with the names of “Baker’s Own Military Heroes” and the words “God Bless America” at the bottom.

The Baker Decalogue would be fine on a church lawn or on some other private property, but placing a sectarian religious monument so prominently in a city park that is supposed to honor veterans is an insult to all the U.S. military men and women who were not followers of that sect. It is also, as the Baker city attorney advised, a violation of the Establishment Clause. It’s not too late for the city to do the right thing and have the religious monument removed from Veterans Plaza.

Or, they could do what Bradford County, Florida, did. Instead of removing the donated Ten Commandments monument from their courthouse lawn, Bradford County opened the lawn up to anyone who wanted to place a monument. American Atheists took them up on their offer and earlier today Bradford County became home to the first atheist monument on government property anywhere in the United States.

After the unveiling of the monument in Bradford County, American Atheists President David Silverman announced that this was the first of fifty similar monuments that American Atheists will be placing on government properties throughout the country in places where religious monuments currently stand.

It will be interesting to see where the other forty-nine atheist monuments end up. Given Baker's recent financial problems, the city probably can't afford to pay for an unnecessary lawsuit that it would certainly lose.

How To Take Public Office In Louisiana Without Swearing To God

Last fall I was elected unopposed to the Board of Aldermen in the village in which I live. Before I could take office, however, I had to fulfill the following requirement set forth in the Louisiana Constitution:

Art. X, §30.  Oath of Office

Section 30.  Every official shall take the following oath or affirmation:  "I, .  .  ., do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the constitution and laws of the United States and the constitution and laws of this state and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as .  .  ., according to the best of my ability and understanding, so help me God."

As an atheist I wasn’t going to swear an oath that ended with “so help me God.” It would have been dishonest.

Since the Oath of Office section of the Louisiana Constitution provides an affirmation option, I was pretty certain I would not be compelled to say “so help me God.” Even though the language of the section does not make it clear that the phrase “so help me God” is not required of those who choose to affirm, it would make no sense to interpret it any other way. The whole point of the affirmation option is to accommodate those people who have a conscientious objection to swearing religious oaths. Any statement that ends with “so help me God” is clearly a religious oath, regardless of which verb was used.

Although I was confident that I would have no trouble getting through the spoken affirmation without violating my conscience, I wasn’t so sure about the Oath of Office form that public officials in Louisiana are required to sign. That form reproduces the words of the Oath of Office, with the phrase “so help me God” printed immediately before the blank for the public official’s signature. I could easily omit the religious language from the spoken affirmation, but I couldn’t so easily omit the religious language from a pre-printed form that I was supposed to sign.

As it turned out I was reading Herb Silverman’s Candidate Without a Prayer last November. It’s a very interesting memoir and is relevant to this post because Silverman was faced with a similar form when he was trying to become a notary in South Carolina. Silverman solved the problem by striking through the phrase “so help me God” before he signed his notary application. South Carolina rejected Silverman’s application, the case went to court, and eventually Silverman won. (There’s lots more background to the Silverman story, but I’ll leave that for you to read about on your own.)

I decided to follow Silverman’s example. I would have preferred to not have to strike through the words “so help me God” since I figured some people would see that as a hostile act and it wasn't my intention to be hostile to anyone. However, I couldn’t think of any better solution. Of course, the ideal solution would be for the state to provide an Oath of Office form that does not contain a religious declaration, at least to those people who request a secular affirmation, but I expect that change would have to be made by either the state legislature or the courts.

In mid-November I emailed the Commissions Division of the Louisiana Secretary of State’s office and asked whether they had any established policies or any guidance regarding the affirmation option. I gave a summary of my situation and explained how I planned to handle the spoken affirmation and the Oath of Office form. I didn’t get a response, so I emailed them again around the end of November. Still, no response.

Then, I emailed the First Assistant Secretary of State. His response was quick, cordial, and professional. He apologized for the lack of communication from the Commissions Division and he asked for my phone number so that he could have the Secretary of State’s legal counsel call me.

A few minutes later the SOS’s legal counsel called. She was also cordial and professional. We briefly discussed the relevant Louisiana law and how the affirmation option should be exercised. Apparently, they did not have any established policy on the details of affirming. (I’m not surprised by that since I expect that very few public officials in Louisiana choose to affirm.) I told her that during the spoken affirmation I intended to say “affirm” instead of “swear” and to leave off “so help me God.” She indicated that that was acceptable. I told her that I planned to strike through the words “so help me God” on the Oath of Office form before signing. I mentioned the Silverman case. She assured me that striking through those words would not cause them to reject my form. She said she would send a note to the Commissions Division so that they would know they should accept my form.

When I went to the courthouse in late December to make my spoken affirmation, I told the clerk that I was choosing to affirm. Still, during his prompting he said “swear” and “so help me God.” I said “affirm” instead of “swear” and left off “so help me God.” I also reminded him at the end that I was affirming. I don’t think he was trying to be difficult. I think he just didn’t know how the affirmation is supposed to work. I struck through the phrase “so help me God” before signing my forms (two copies have to be signed and filed) and there wasn’t any problem.

I was very pleased with how smoothly everything went. There was a bit of confusion, but at no point did I sense any hostility from anyone. If more Louisianans choose a secular affirmation, maybe even the confusion can be reduced.