SC state senator is afraid of words

Did anyone notice this fine piece of legislation? South Carolina Senator Robert Ford wants to make swearing a felony.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina:

SECTION 1. Article 3, Chapter 15, Title 16 of the 1976 Code is amended by adding:

"Section 16-15-370. (A) It is unlawful for a person in a public forum or place of public accommodation wilfully and knowingly to publish orally or in writing, exhibit, or otherwise make available material containing words, language, or actions of a profane, vulgar, lewd, lascivious, or indecent nature.

What's the penalty? Get this:

(B) A person who violates the provisions of this section is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, must be fined not more than five thousand dollars or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."

Takes me back to the good old days of Puritan America, where blasphemy could get you whipped, your forehead branded with a 'B', or your tongue bored through with a hot iron. For repeat offenses, you could be killed. And remember that blasphemy could be swearing, or simply being an atheist.

In 1699 a Virginia statute was designed to eliminate "horrid and Atheistic principles greatly tending to the dishonor of Almighty God . . . "Blasphemers might deny God or the holy Trinity, declare that there are more than one God, or worship another god or goddess.

Dark days.

Hey, is 'piss' vulgar? Because I have a book that Mr Ford might like to prosecute.

Conversations with the Priest: My feelings are truer than your feelings

Latter-day Saints believe that their church is the Only True Church on the earth. That's not such a drastic claim. Even though not every religion comes out and says it, most religions would say that their system (if not their own particular denomination) is true and all other are in some sense less true.

I was talking to The Priest about this, and I asked him, "Let's say I told you that Apollo pulled the sun across the sky in a chariot. Would you accept my claim?"

He had to allow that he wouldn't.

"Why not?" I asked. "On what basis would you reject my religion and accept yours? Or what about Muslims or Hindus with their claims?"

His answer was that he'd read and studied things, and the Holy Ghost had confirmed to him (via those wonderful feelings and experiences) that his religion was true.

"Well, they've read and studied, too!" I said. "And they have strong feelings that their religion is true. Are your feelings somehow more valid than theirs?"

There isn't really a good answer to that, and to his credit he didn't try to invent one. But imagine the cheek of taking that kind of approach!

When Mormons claim to have the One True Religion, they don't really mean to be arrogant, truly. They sometimes allow that all religions have some truth (oh, what a generous admission), but they have more. Well, that would be all right, if they had better evidence than flimsy feelings, but they do not. So for churches that use emotions as evidence, that means that their proof is the intensity or the frequency or the persuasive power of the feelings they have. Other people in deadened and benighted religions may have spiritual feelings, sure, but they're just not as real or powerful as their feelings. Their feelings just aren't as valid.

That conversation was an eye-opener to me. I never realised how breathtakingly arrogant that view is, but it is. And it's not exclusive to Mormons. It's indulged in by every religious believer who says that their nebulous claims trump other people's nebulous claims.

NB: The Priest is not a real person. He's an amalgam of many religious people I've spoken with. I only write down a conversation with "the Priest" after I've heard the same claims from at least three different people. As a result, the dialogue is almost entirely made up, in order to make myself sound smart. Or it could be 100% accurate. I forget.

Proposition 8: Un-American?

Did Tom Hanks say something wrong when he called Mormon Prop 8 supporters 'un-American'? Hanks has released a statement apologising for the remark, and while at first I wished he hadn't, I find myself agreeing with his reasoning.

"Last week, I labeled members of the Mormon church who supported California's Proposition 8 as 'un-American,'" the actor said in a statement through his publicist. "I believe Proposition 8 is counter to the promise of our Constitution; it is codified discrimination."

"But everyone has a right to vote their conscience; nothing could be more American," the statement continues. "To say members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who contributed to Proposition 8 are 'un-American' creates more division when the time calls for respectful disagreement. No one should use 'un-American' lightly or in haste. I did. I should not have."

Hanks strikes a nice balance in his remark. He reaffirms the wrongness of writing bigotry into law, but takes care to focus on the offending word. Prop 8 represents a form of bigotry which is indeed counter to values Americans like to claim, like equality, fair play, and so on. But leave the word 'un-American' back in the McCarthy days, where it belongs.

So I'll say that Mormon supporters of Prop 8 are hateful, intolerant, unfair, mean-spirited, bigoted, and pathologically ignorant. Not un-American.

PS: Did anyone near you donate? It's a matter of public record. Check it out on Prop 8 Maps. Name and shame, people.

Nashville again smacks down 'English only' law

A shout out to the good citizens of Nashville, who voted down an English-only proposal that would have prevented the use of other languages by government workers and publications.

The proposal was introduced by Eric Crafton, a metropolitan councilman. It was opposed by a broad coalition including the mayor, civil rights groups, business leaders, ministers and the heads of nine institutions of higher education.

“The results of this special election reaffirm Nashville’s identity as a welcoming and friendly city,” Mayor Karl Dean said in a statement.

As I've argued before, people advance these proposals claiming to want to save money and encourage English use, but they're really just a more acceptable way of punishing immigrants.

Critics said the proposal would tarnish Nashville’s reputation as a cultural mixing pot and drive away immigrants and international businesses. They also accused Mr. Crafton of worsening anti-immigrant sentiment and wasting at least $350,000 of taxpayer’s money on a special election.

Nice to see it fail. Well done, Nashville.

Inauguration liveblogging

It's 1.30 am in Perth, but I'm up watching. The Inauguration is on all channels.

1.30 Everyone looks great in their solid colours. Yellow is hard to pull off, though. Not thinking of anyone in particular. Ahem.

1.39 I can't even be mad at Bush today. His characteristic smirk looks tempered.

1.49 A corpulent fellow is talking to an invisible supernatural being. Some people are cheering, which I don't think you're supposed to do during a prayer.

1.54 You have to love Aretha. How cool is it that she's singing? I think her hit 'Respect' came out the year I was born, and here she is still. I want to turn the sound up, but I don't want to wake Ms Perfect.

1.57 Biden's up. I hope he and Obama do support the Constitution — by prosecuting everyone in the Bush administration. So help me.

1.59 Shut up, Australian announcer. I want to hear the music. Must be cold. Not optimal for string players.

2.04 The Moment.

2.10 One of the things I like about Obama's speeches is that he seems to require us to be our best. He speaks to our intelligence and not our primal urges like fear or dominance.

2.14 What must Bush/Cheney et al. be thinking as Obama lists the dire circumstances facing America?

2.16 'Common good'? 'Rule of law'? What is he talking about? I haven't heard these words in a presidential speech for a long time. It feels strange and new in my ears.

2.19 Hey, non-believers got a mention. I think I may have just forgiven him for Rick Warren. Almost. But I'm too easily influenced about that kind of thing.

2.27 I liked how his speech was a mixture of general policy direction (in the form of challenges we face), and encouragement.

2.52 Dick Cheney looks like no one more than old Mr Potter from It's a Wonderful Life. An apt comparison, I think.

2.54 George W. Bush waves from the helicopter. Goodbye to all that. Now we can get on with the work.

2.56 I bet the pilot of that helicopter isn't some ideological crony plucked from Liberty University.

3.07 They're starting to show commercials again, so it must be time to wrap it up and go back to bed. I'm glad I got up for this. A lot has been made of the history of this occasion, especially the race aspect, and that's a really big deal. But for me, race is just one way to look at it. I'm proud that Obama's the president, not because he's black, but because he's intelligent and hard-working. We've had eight years of a lazy and stupid president, and the nation has suffered from it in lots of ways: the national discourse, education, military, internationally. Today marks the Return of the Smart People — people who see reality as having some authority in decision-making. It's a relief.

Mmm... jelly filling... UV DETH

Via Jeffrey: You know what would be good right now? Some pro-abortion donuts.

KRISPY KREME CELEBRATES OBAMA WITH PRO-ABORTION DOUGHNUTS

"The next time you stare down a conveyor belt of slow-moving, hot, sugary glazed donuts at your local Krispy Kreme you just might be supporting President-elect Barack Obama's radical support for abortion on demand – including his sweeping promise to sign the Freedom of Choice Act as soon as he steps in the Oval Office, Jan. 20.

The doughnut giant released the following statement yesterday:

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc. (NYSE: KKD) is honoring American's sense of pride and freedom of choice on Inauguration Day, by offering a free doughnut of choice to every customer on this historic day, Jan. 20. By doing so, participating Krispy Kreme stores nationwide are making an oath to tasty goodies -- just another reminder of how oh-so-sweet "free" can be.

Just an unfortunate choice of words? For the sake of our Wednesday morning doughnut runs, we hope so. The unfortunate reality of a post Roe v. Wade America is that "choice" is synonymous with abortion access and celebration of 'freedom of choice' is a tacit endorsement of abortion rights on demand.

We all love donuts, but they take the relationship in a direction that's eerily close to stalking.

Think about it, you political lefties out there. When you first saw this ad:



...did you immediately think 'boycott'? Did you throw your DVD player out the window, and organise a protest? Probably not, because you have a functioning mind and aren't always trying to be outraged over manufactured controversy. People at the ALL don't have the benefit of this.

There are two lessons here.

One, if you are a donut maker, do not capitulate to crazy people. Remember the flap over Rachel Ray's scarf? She wore one in a Dunkin' Donuts commercial, and the wingnut-o-sphere went berzerk, and decided that the ad was a coded message of support for Palestine and terrorism or something. Incredibly, Dunkin' Donuts pulled the ad. But the Religious Right weren't satisfied. Now, they have decided to attack donuts — again.

Two, the Christian Right has the collective brain power of a ten-dollar Mixmaster. And it's always stuck on high.

Mormon Studies fellowship, but not where you'd guess

The University of Utah is offering a fellowship in Mormon Studies.

"It's a matter of academic justice," said Bob Goldberg, the center's director. "There would not be a question if we were in New York City and wanted to establish a course in Jewish studies, or in Chicago, Baltimore or Boston and wanted to start a course in Catholic studies. This is a perfect place to do research on Mormonism. To me, it's a no-brainer."

The U.'s is the first such fellowship in the nation, but joins a growing list of colleges that offer some coursework in Mormon studies, including Claremont College in southern California, Utah State University, Vanderbilt University and the University of North Carolina, to name a few.

Sounds interesting, but what's even more interesting is that you can't do a degree in Mormon Studies in the one place you'd think you could: BYU.

Why not? Well, perhaps a few ideas. There's a certain distrust of learning in the LDS Church, unless it's specifically dedicated to meeting the needs of the organisation instead of, you know, facts. This suspicion was written into the Book of Mormon, and it's worked its way into General Conference. Dallin Oaks, an LDS apostle, famously warned of the dangers of 'symposia' (meaning those clever Sunstone rascals). Here's the money quote.

I have seen some persons attempt to understand or undertake to criticize the gospel or the Church by the method of reason alone, unaccompanied by the use or recognition of revelation. When reason is adopted as the only—or even the principal—method of judging the gospel, the outcome is predetermined.

He doesn't say what the 'outcome' is, but it can't be good. So Oaks is implying that trying to understand the Church using reason instead of — what? whisperings of a spirit being? some guy telling you? — will cause you to reject religious doctrine. An interesting admission, and a huge warning sign that you're dealing with an enemy of reason.

Church leaders have periodically slagged off Mormons who research into the church's history. One leader, Neal Maxwell, trivialised the scholarly efforts of thinking Latter-day Saints as "intellectual bungee jumping". (A prominent Mormon apologetics institute was subsequently renamed in his honour.)

So it's not likely that the LDS Church (via its official university) will make a place for scholarly Mormon research anytime soon. They don't seem to think their faith can stand scrutiny, and with that I fully agree.

John Morley said it well:

Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat.

No attempt to find the god that ordered the hit

It's hard to find good minions anymore.

The Chestermere man charged with attempted murder in Minnesota says it was God that made him stab another truck driver.

According to documents filed in the Clay County Court, Harmit Singh Bhangu, 32 of Chestermere, told an officer who was interviewing him that God orders him to do things.

How the mighty have fallen. God used to have henchmen like Moses and Joshua, and now he's reduced to working with crazy people.

I don't want to pick on the poor guy, even though he's a very very scary poor guy who's just about killed another poor guy. Mr Bhangu has got some serious problems, and maybe some medication might have helped him.

But the Brain Teaser of the Day is: On what basis would a religious believer claim that God didn't really order him to kill a man?

Is it because God would never tell someone to kill someone else? That's a hard view to defend from the Bible. Try reading Joshua 13, where Yahweh appears as some kind of evil familiar, impelling the aged Joshua to yet more slaughter.

Is it because Mr Bhangu is doing obviously crazy things? Ezekiel lay on his side for over a year. He also ate bread cooked over a cow pat. All perfectly biblical, and extremely loopy.

As a Mormon, the question of how to evaluate other people's revelations used to be a tough one. Now as an atheist, it's easy. Anyone who says that a god is speaking to them is wrong. But I don't care so much as long as they're keeping their delusion to themselves, keeping it away from children, not harming anyone with it, and not trying to legislate on the basis of it. When they overstep these bounds, they move from deluded to dangerous, like Mr Bhangu.

Now here's a part from the article that caught my attention:

“(The) defendant stated that he knew it was wrong to kill people in this country but that God had ordered him to do it,” say the documents filed by police.

And if God orders you to do something, you don't worry about a trifling thing like law. All my life, I heard people in church telling me that God came first. God's law was higher than man's law. Little did I realise that they were implanting a meme that would justify my breaking any law that the church considered wrong.

And I see that it's not just Mormons that are getting the treatment. Here's a Christian columnist asking kids the musical question:

What Would You Do If Arrested For Talking About God?

"If they threatened to hurt me if I didn't stop talking about God, I wouldn't listen to them because I know that I am pleasing God," says Megan, 9.

Megan would be following the example of the Apostles Peter and John upon their release from jail.
...
Ask this question: If police were told to arrest all Christians in your area, would they come to your house?

Hurt them? Arrest them? Who's advocating this? Or is this a bit of galvanisation through paranoia?

This article delivers two memes at once: 'Religious Dogma Over Secular Law', and 'They're Coming to Get Us'. But fancy putting either one before a child. At best, you make them fearful for the safety of their family, and at worst you raise a generation of Law-Breakers for Jesus.

Italian atheist buses are slightly more edgy

Italian atheists are launching their own bus ads.



Translation: "The bad news is that God doesn’t exist. The good news is that you don’t need him."

Nice. But is it bad news that there's no god? At least you don't have to spend eternity worshipping someone who created you for that purpose.

Dang it, I'm envious! Australian bus ads have been blocked, so everybody else is getting all the fun.

UPDATE: Kibosh-ëd! Oh the infamy...

Thought for the Afternoon from Ariane Sherine

Via Snowqueen: A very nice Thought for the Afternoon from atheist bus organiser Ariane Sherine. The Thoughts are usually religious, but non-believers are sometimes asked to speak. This clip aired on BBC Radio last week. I've captured it and placed it here because the broadcasts disappear from the site after a while.



If you can't get the recording to work, I'll summarise it for you: We all have a lot in common, even though we come from different backgrounds and have different beliefs. As for us atheists, we believe in enjoying things, taking care of our children, and living happy and safe lives. Could you muckheads please not spoil it for the rest of us by arguing over your beliefs, even though you like them? kthxbai

All right, she's a lot more positive than I would be. Note to the BBC: Never ask me to give the Thought for the Afternoon.

Portuguese spelling changes

I'm late on this story, but I'm going with it anyway, just because as an American-Australian I think it's nice to remember that anglophones aren't the only ones with transnational spelling issues.

This time it's lusophones. That is, speakers of Portuguese.

Brazilians start 2009 facing the task of learning new spelling rules that have just come into effect.

The spelling reforms have been agreed by Portuguese-speaking nations, but the language seems set to have different written forms for some time to come.

In Portugal, there has been fierce resistance in some quarters to the changes because many of the changes are to spell words the Brazilian way.

Isn't that always the way? The European colonisers get alarmed by these American upstarts taking over the language.

Any language with an alphabetic writing system will eventually have this kind of trouble because every language undergoes sound change, making old spellings archaic. And when dialects of a language diverge, there are bound to be struggles over whose dialect gets represented in the writing system.

So what are the changes?

• Silent consonants are getting dropped, like the silent 'c' in 'actualmente' (actually) or the 'p' in 'optimo' (great). A tip: if you're a Portuguese consonant, don't hang out before 't'. There's no future in it.
• Some accent marks are being discontinued — diphthongs 'éi' and 'ói' will lose their accents
• Letters k, y, and w are being officially added, though they've been in use unofficially.

As a linguist, I usually think of language change as slow, like two tectonic plates sliding past each other. And usually it is. But, as with land masses, when the language gets locked into place in the form of writing, we can expect periodic earthquakes. This is one of those cases.

UPDATE: If you're curious about this issue, here's a nutty little article about it, written in 'Simplified Spelling' English. It's cute. You can imagine yourself as a citizen of Parallel England, or you can imagine that you're hanging out with Simplified English advocates like George Bernard Shaw and Mark Twain. And here's a challenge — try reading it aloud without unconsciously affecting a dopey overbite accent, like Cousin Floyd from the country. It's harder than you'd think.

The War on Writing Systems suffers a setback

How are we going to defend ourselves against terrorism if we're not allowed to discriminate against different-looking people with weird writing on their shirts?

An air passenger forced to cover his T-shirt because it displayed Arabic script has been awarded a payout of $240,000 (£163,000), his lawyers say.

Two Transportation Security Authority officials and JetBlue Airways will be forced to make the payout.

Raed Jarrar, a US resident, had accused them of illegally discriminating against him based on his ethnicity and the Arabic writing on his T-shirt.

The payout is the largest of its kind since the 9/11 terror attacks.

Here's the shirt.


Okay, I have to admit that this is not the least threatening t-shirt I have ever seen in an airport. Vaguely militant slogan plus Arabic script. I would probably think twice about wearing that for a flight.

And yet, isn't that the lesson of this whole thing? These officials are in the business of creating a security state. It's hard to monitor everyone all the time, so it's useful to them if they can get individuals to do a lot of self-monitoring — to make lots of little decisions not to wear this, or not to say that, to censor themselves in a hundred ways just so they won't fall afoul of some arbitrary and unwritten code of conduct.

And so Raed's question that day was very appropriate:

I once again asked the three of them : "How come you are asking me to change my t-shirt? Isn't this my constitutional right to wear it? I am ready to change it if you tell me why I should. Do you have an order against Arabic t-shirts? Is there such a law against Arabic script?"

No, there is not. The good guys won this time.

Like the bus ad? Get the shirt.

The atheist buses are out!

An atheist advertising campaign has been launched on buses across Britain.

A fund-raising drive for the promotion, carrying the slogan "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life", raised more than £140,000.

The campaign, which will also feature on the Tube, is backed by the British Humanist Association and prominent atheist, Professor Richard Dawkins.

And there's a t-shirt to match. Perth will soon see me rocking the "Probably No God" t-shirt,


but I don't think I'll carry it off as well as Ariane Sherine.

Interestingly, the C of E felt a desire to comment.

The Church of England said Christian faith allowed people to put their life into a "proper perspective".

A spokesman said: "We would defend the right of any group representing a religious or philosophical position to be able to promote that view through appropriate channels.

"However, Christian belief is not about worrying or not enjoying life."

Well, I can tell you that spending Sunday mornings lounging about with Ms Perfect is much more conducive to enjoying life than spending 3 hours in church hearing stuff like this:

2:25 And now I ask, can ye say aught of yourselves? I answer you, Nay. Ye cannot say that ye are even as much as the dust of the earth...

2:33 For behold, there is a wo pronounced upon him who listeth to obey that [evil] spirit; for if he listeth to obey him, and remaineth and dieth in his sins, the same drinketh damnation to his own soul; for he receiveth for his wages an everlasting punishment, having transgressed the law of God contrary to his own knowledge.

or

12:17 Then is the time when their torments shall be as a lake of fire and brimstone, whose flame ascendeth up forever and ever; and then is the time that they shall be chained down to an everlasting destruction, according to the power and captivity of Satan, he having subjected them according to his will.

If this were true, wouldn't the idea of getting tormented for eternity cause you some worry? Wouldn't it mitigate your enjoyment of life just a tad if you were occasionally told that you were worse than dirt?

Time to spread the Good News, which is that the punishment forewarned by religions is most likely fictional. You are free. Now enjoy your life.

Quick links

Blind people use facial expressions in the same way as sighted people do, including those strained smiles you use when you're not really happy. This provides more evidence that facial expressions are innate and not learned.

Where do you think love comes from, Mr Atheist? Can't see love in your microscope, can you? Actually, you can, if you're doing brain scans. And what they find is that some people still feel twittery about each other after 20 years, instead of the 18 months most of us get. They call these couples 'swans', but that's not a good name. Swans are cranky critters. But I think Ms Perfect and I will still be swanning about, still coursing with dopamine in each other's presence, even after 20 blissful years.

Fear the hammer of Thor! A man dressed as the God of War after a costume party frightened off a burglar. Maybe the burglar was a philosophical theist who realised that you can't discriminate between two supernatural claims — it doesn't matter whether the god is Christian or Norse, you'd better book. Personally, I'd be much more frightened of Thor than of Jesus. People in sandals are easier to outrun. On the other hand, if Jesus has come as that psychopathic Old Testament god, then all bets are off. Best to run first and ask theological questions later.

Toplessness threatened on Australian beaches

Christian lawmaker and serial pest Fred Nile is at it again, doing his best to turn Australia into a nation of prudes. Apparently, women's breasts make him feel funny, so he wants to ban them on beaches.

Arguing that the sight of women without bikini tops is offensive, Reverend Fred Nile, a conservative lawmaker of the Christian Democrats, has won backing from key politicians in the state of New South Wales to tighten existing laws covering nude sunbathing.

Nile has drafted a bill to be introduced in the legislature to ban topless sunbathing in the eastern Australian state.

"The law should be clear. It must say exposure of women's breasts on beaches will be prohibited," he was quoted as saying by the Daily Telegraph.

What's the compelling reason here?

"If we don't, we could have people saying 'I'm not nude. I can walk (topless) down (Sydney's main street)," he said.

One lawmaker has considered the possibilities, perhaps a bit too much.

"If you're on the beach do you want somebody with big knockers next to you when you're there with the kids?" asked Labour government MP Paul Gibson.

Well, um, exactly how big are we talking about here?

It's difficult to imagine just how disconnected someone like Nile is. These are our bodies. Babies see breasts every day. Any normal person would just look away if they didn't like them, but Nile wants to get the law involved because of his sense of disgust for the body and his desire to control others — not an atypical mix in Christianity. Has he not considered that restricting mammary visualisation will just drive kids to porn?

For those interested in preserving the cause of liberty, certain forms of protest spring easily to the imagination.

Official atheism? Not hardly.

Michael Newdow is trying to get "so help me God" out of the Presidential swearing-in ceremony. Do I think it will succeed? No. Do I think it's kind of annoying and crazy? Yes. But I'm happy to see him try. He's doing the work for us, pushing the Overton Window, and making all us other atheists look nice and sensible. Good on him. The state shouldn't be taking sides — promoting either religion or atheism — in this debate, and references to a god counts as 'taking sides'.

But there's a bit of confusion about what promoting atheism looks like. The confusion is coming from the Peter Sprig, of the Family Research Council. Given the source, I have to assume that this is manufactured confusion, which we also call 'dishonesty'. Anyhow, here's part of a back-and-forth, starting with Dan Barker, one of the plaintiffs and co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation.

And we're also challenging Chief Justice Roberts for overstepping his authority in inserting the phrase, "So help me God" into the presidential oath which is in the Constitution. That is un-American. It is unfair. It marginalizes. It makes those of us good Americans who don't believe in God second-class citizens. It's unfair.

Good so far. Now the other side from Sprig.

But ironically, if a lawsuit like this were to succeed, we would be in effect establishing atheism as the national religion by barring any mention of God or any allusion to religion in any public ceremony.

No, this is wrong. And it's not just because atheism is not a religion.

I hear this all the time from Christians, who say, "They're trying to make our [ schools | government | restaurants ] atheistic by removing all references to God." The problem here is that having no particular mention of religion or god does not constitute de facto atheism. It's just a normal, default position.

Let me show you what 'promoting atheism' looks like. If Mr Obama were to invite me to give a speech at his inauguration in which I would explain to everyone why there's probably no god, talk about the damage that religion can do on a societal and personal level, and encourage everyone to leave their religions — then that would be promoting atheism. If, on the other hand, Mr Obama invites some religious loon to give a speech exhorting some god to favour the nation with blessings (oh, wait, that did happen), then that would be promoting religion. Either one would be taking sides, and would be inappropriate.

Having neither of us give a speech or a prayer would not be promoting religion or atheism. It would just be normal.

I present this as a public service to my over-anxious religious readers. Now you know what 'promotion of atheism' looks like, so you can recognise it in case you ever see it for once in your life.

UPDATE: Noticed this article, in which Barker says it better than I:

Asked if prayer is excluded, wouldn't that mean government is choosing atheists as the winner, Barker replied, "There is a difference between neutrality and hostility.

"If the government were to invite me as a national atheist leader to get up and give an invocation that curses the name of God and that encourages people to stop believing and stop being so childish and divisive then that would be wrong because the government would be taking a pro-atheist position," he said.