Why haven't any of these 8 states been hit with a massive law suit?

There are a lot of nonsensical laws still on the books. I doubt you would find a case where any of these are actually enforced. They call them ‘lawmakers for a reason. They never seem to repeal anything.

You only get to sue if you have actually been harmed. So you would have to be disqualified based on your atheism to give you standing to sue. Has anyone actually ever been denied office because of being an atheist?

__Has anyone actually ever been denied office because of being an atheist?_

For the most part, you can’t get elected unless you at least pretend to be religious, so it doesn’t get tested.

@jaytkay I am aware of that, except in places like here in San Francisco where it is downright rude to bring up religion in conversation when running for office.

It should be illegal to even have such laws, blatantly flouting the constitution, on the books, I don’t care how antiquated they are.

Maybe it is against the law for an atheist to sue someone.

A bunch of states have laws against sodomy but they don’t enforce them either.

Yes, under the right circumstances, they do enforce them @jca.

These are tantamount to the no J-Walking thing. No one is abiding by these laws.

What’s interesting is how much research someone did to put this together. surely with no specific agenda in mind

@Dutchess_III: “Unenforceable.”

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/21/12-states-ban-sodomy-a-decade-after-court-ruling/7981025/

I love the wording of our Texas one: “No religious test shall ever be required…. provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being”.

I bet I still have to tell them which supreme being I believe in and I bet if it is Shiva or Ba’al I have to take a test.

But those other laws, no spitting on the sidewalk, no J walking, aren’t going against the very heart of the Constitution. Is the spirit of the Constitution important not?

..or. Important or not.

I am the Supreme Being.

@Dutchess_III I don’t disagree with you at all, yet there are many who believe the intent of the Framers of the Constitution had in mind a Theist nation,

I have no idea when those laws you cited were enacted. But there was a lot of stuff like that enacted in the Fifties as anti-Communist efforts. The biggest defamation of Communism was that it is Godless and atheistic. That is when “under God” was put in the pledge of allegiance, and “In God We Trust” put on money.

Best answer yet @zenvelo. Thank you. And it wouldn’t have caused a furor in the 50’s, either, when it was assumed everyone was a Christian, and, for the most part, everyone was. Or pretended to be.

The Arkansas constitution, in its current form, is from 1874.