Not in Texas at least. I’ve been doing some browsing for some forums on people who have similar interests to myself lately (found a good sci-fi/fantasy forum the other day, the Chronicles Network) and found a good, lively atheist/agnostic forum.  In one topic I found a link to a site that lists state constitutions that forbid atheists from holding office, and not to my surprise I saw Texas in the list. Now, before I went off and ranted, I thought, let me check. This is probably a sentence from a really old version of the document. This type of rule couldn’t possibly hold up to the U.S. Constitution’s separation of church and state clause, right? Wrong.

Texas’ constitutional ban on atheists holding government office

From Texas own web site:

No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall any one be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being.

I’m surprised this hasn’t been challenged in court before. I can see though that it could be the same problem that kept sodomy laws on the books for a long time. I can’t just go challenge it in court. First of all, I’d have to be affected by it, so I’d have to run for office. Secondly, the law would have to be enforced against me. Someone would have to say I can’t hold office because I’m an atheist. If no one chose to enforce the law, it could just sit there on the books as an idle threat.

I wish I didn’t have to blog about things like this so often. I wish I could have a pluralistic outlook on religion and say what works for you is fine, it just don’t work for me. But there’s always someone doing things like this, pushing religion into the lives of those who don’t want it. Very frustrating.