One Hour Parking Show presents…

While supposedly Martin Luther King Day is about celebrating the whole civil rights movement, it is a bit odd to narrow the contributions of thousands down to a single person. Much in the same way Gandhi is remembered for Indian’s liberation, so too is King for civil rights in America. The commonality between these two is their insistence to play within the system, to act peacefully and not challenge the power of the ruling class. Whereas other leaders insisted upon taking acting against their oppression and the system promoting it, King capitulated to the powers that be. He advocated subservience to the system even when the system was oppressive.

Jeff let me kidnap his blog for a post, so let me introduce myself. My name is Laura Bradford, and I’m an atheist.

I respect others’ privately practiced religious beliefs, but I believe in the separation of church and state, and that public schools cannot endorse one religion or hold it over others.

Religion oversteps its bounds when it tries to pass laws that say everybody must follow the beliefs of that religion.

“Our religion says that being gay is a sin–therefore gay marriage should be illegal.”

“Our religion says that contraception and abortion are murder–therefore contraception and abortion should be illegal.”

“Our religion says that prayer is fine–therefore everyone should have to pray in school.”

So I was really interested to learn about Jessica Ahlquist, a 16-year-old who won a lawsuit to have a religious prayer banner taken down at her public school. It’s clear that, according to the Constitution, the prayer doesn’t belong there. She is 100% correct.

But as a result of that, she’s been the subject of cyberbullying, with people going so far as to post her home address and threaten to assault her or her family.

Really, people? She’s not telling them they can’t go to church on Sundays, only that her school take down an illegal banner. She was incredibly brave and smart to do that. And, of course, she’s facing backlash.

Remember that passage in the Bible where Jesus points out that the man who’s praying privately is better than the person flaunting his beliefs? I must have missed the part where he said “If you see an atheist, ye shall tweet that you want to beat her up after biology class.”

So here’s a message from us evil, ugly, God-abandoning atheists: We’re not out to say you can’t practice your religion. We’re just fighting for the right to live out our own lives in peace.

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Laura E. Bradford is a novelist who blogs at A Writer’s Notes. You can find her on Twitter @lauraebradford.

After slugging through more material for a degree paper I’m working on–material written at a fifth grade level that is blisteringly unaware of its simplicity of thought–I need to point one thing out. Not listening to and pointing out that your opinion is stupid is not the same thing as not allowing you to say something stupid. And the fact that you’re complaining about this fact in multiple media including for profit publication really undercuts your complaint.