Les Jones

Interesting point. Article IX also prohibits dueling. They really hacked away at the freedoms of officeholders in that Article.

To me, the juiciest question comes in the potential contradiction between the Tennessee constitution and the US constitution Article VI, Clause 3 ("...but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.")

If a similar clause did not exist in the Tennessee constitution, would the federal constitution's admonition hold sway in Tennessee? I hold that it would, even in the absence of the fourteenth amendment.

The state constitutional provision denying atheists the right to hold office is clearly unconstitutional under the U.S. Supreme Court's 1961 decision in Torcaso v. Watkins. An interesting article at the Council for Secular Humanism website (see: http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/flynn_20_1.htm) notes that a number of states (Arkansas, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas) still have constitutional provisions denying atheists certain rights.

As an atheistic agnostic living in Tennessee, I should be outraged over this insult, but I also wonder what's the point? Opinion polls in the last several years make it clear that no openly atheistic candidate can be elected, and I've got a feeling that if a repeal of the ban of atheists from public office would go to a popular vote in Tennessee it'd lose by a landslide....

tgirsch: Article VI section 3 of the U.S. Constitution (which you quote) applies only to federal offices. The U.S. Supreme Court (in the Torcaso case which I mentioned in my last comment) struck down a similar provision in the Maryland constitution based on the First Amendment separation clause applied to the states by the Fourteenth amentement. I'm pretty sure you can find the Torcaso case on the Web (do a Google search on "torcaso v. watkins), if you're interested.

"amentement"? Obviously, I meant "amendment"... *sigh*

Len:
Article VI section 3 of the U.S. Constitution (which you quote) applies only to federal offices.

I don't get that at all. It says "any Office or public Trust under the United States." [emphasis added] To me, that says at any level, not just the federal level. Remember, to become a state you have to ratify the constitution, agreeing to fall under its domain.

tgirsch: basically, back in the late 1700's and early 1800's the U.S. Supreme Court interpreted the Constitution to apply to the Federal government ONLY unless the provision explicitly applied to the states. Tha business of applying Constitutional provisions to the states basically dates from after the Civil War and the ratification of the Civil War Amendments (13th, 14th and 15th).

That's the Reader's Digest Condensed Edition you'd learn in constitutional law class in law school. The detailed story is a lot longer and more complicated... and would take much longer to tell here.

around hanging hangings counted cross free pattern stitch hangings wall cross pattern stitch hangings wall bucilla cross stitch ball hanging low drywall hanging hanging tapestry candle hanging holder hanging planter railing tube friend hanging counted cross kit stitch book cross stitch cross free pattern stitch hanging thong hanging woman cross disney stitch alphabet cross stitch