The Story Behind George H. W. Bush's
"Atheists Shouldn't Be Considered Citizens or Patriots" Quote
by Madalyn O'Hair
Introduced by David M. Fitzpatrick
Last updated
Sunday, 26 February 2006
 You
may have linked in from the "Religious
Quotations That Make Me Shake My Head" page. What follows is an
in-depth look at former President George Herbert Walker Bush's infamous
anti-Atheist commentary to Bob Sherman during Bush's first presidential
campaign in 1987.
It's worth noting that this sums up,
perhaps better than all the other mindless, selfish, and inconsiderate
things any other meatball has ever uttered, how sad a shape this country is
in. When a presidential candidate can espouse the ignorant view George H. W.
Bush did on August 27, 1987, and still get elected... well, it's time
to do something.
I don't know what, though. Since the
majority of Americans are, indeed,
Xians, presidential candidates don't get elected if they say "I
don't think Christians should be considered citizens or patriots."
But Bush didn't have to say that. Atheists
aren't looking for that sort of thing... unlike the meatballs, who no doubt
rejoiced and thanked God for such a wonderful person as Bush to have said
that. No, what Atheists are looking for is something that evidently was too
outlandish for George H.W. Bush to say: that Atheists are just as much
citizens and patriots as any other Americans.
Clearly, Bush thinks this is a Xian-only
nation, with no room for anyone who isn't Xian. His values have rubbed off
on his son, whose foray into his "faith-based initiative" violates the very
tenets of the Constitution and freedom of and from religion it guarantees
us.
But enough of my rambling. Let's get to the
part that matters.
ISSUE:
"Can George Bush, with impunity, state that Atheists
should not be considered either citizens or patriots?"
The History of the Issue
Madalyn O'Hair
When George Bush was campaigning for the
presidency, as incumbent vice president, one of his stops was in Chicago,
Illinois, on August 27, 1987. At O'Hare Airport he held a formal outdoor
news conference. There Robert I. Sherman, a reporter for the American
Atheist news journal, fully accredited by the state of Illinois and by
invitation a participating member of the press corps covering the national
candidates had the following exchange with then Vice President Bush.
Sherman: What will you do
to win the votes of the Americans who are Atheists?
Bush: I guess I'm pretty
weak in the Atheist community. Faith in God is important to me.
Sherman: Surely you
recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are
Atheists?
Bush: No, I don't know that
Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered
patriots. This is one nation under God.
Sherman (somewhat taken aback):
Do you support as a sound constitutional principle the separation of
state and church?
Bush: Yes, I support the
separation of church and state. I'm just not very high on Atheists.
On October 29, 1988, Mr. Sherman had a
confrontation with Ed Murnane, cochairman of the Bush-Quayle '88 Illinois
campaign. This concerned a law-suit Mr. Sherman had filed to stop the
Community Consolidated School District 21 (Chicago, Illinois, suburb) from
forcing his first-grade Atheist son to pledge allegiance to the flag of the
United States "one nation under God" (Bush's phrase). The following
conversation took place.
Sherman: American Atheists
filed the Pledge of Allegiance lawsuit yesterday. Does the Bush campaign
have an official response to this filing?
Murnane: It's bullshit.
Sherman: What is bullshit?
Murnane: Everything that
American Atheists does, Rob, is bullshit.
Sherman: Thank you for
telling me what the official position of the Bush campaign is on this
issue.
Murnane: You're welcome.
This suit, now in federal district court
for over three years, is not considered to be bullshit by the federal judge
before whom it is pending. During the time it has been in the federal court,
Robert Sherman's son, now age nine, has been physically and psychologically
brutalized in his school for refusing to pledge to a "nation under God."
After Bush's election but before his taking
office, American Atheists wrote to Bush asking that he consider being sworn
into office on the Constitution instead of the Bible and also asking him to
retract his August 1987 statement. Bush had his White House buddy, C. Boyden
Gray, counsel to the president, reply on White House stationery on February
21, 1989, stating that substantively Bush stood by his original statement.
"As you are aware, the President
is a religious man who neither supports atheism nor believes that atheism
should be unnecessarily encouraged or supported by the government."
American Atheists had not asked Bush to
either "unnecessarily" or even "necessarily" encourage or support them. All
they wanted was an apology for the insult. Many Atheists wrote to Bush over
the issue and Nelson Lund, the associate counsel to the president, found it
necessary to reply on April 7, 1989, directly to the American Atheist
General Headquarters, Inc. This letter from the White House said that Mr.
Gray was adhering to his statements in the February 21, 1989, letter. On May
4, 1989, Jon Murray, the president of American Atheists, again wrote to
President Bush demanding a clarification of and an apology for his statement
that Atheists "should not be considered as citizens, nor should they be
considered patriots." Bush ignored the letter, as did Gray and Lund. Mr.
Murray also asked for an appointment so that a group of representatives of
American Atheists could meet with Bush.
Mr. Joseph W. Hagin II responded on May 25,
1989, again on White House stationery. He stated that the president
"appreciated your taking the time to write and your willingness to share
your thoughts" but that "due to heavy commitments on his official calendar"
the president could not meet with representatives of American Atheists. On
January 9, 1990, George Bush, in signing a proclamation for the Martin
Luther King holiday, had the gall to remark that "bigots" must be brought to
justice. Again, American Atheists threw his words back in his face, asking
what his designation of Atheists as being unworthy of citizenship was. On
February 5, 1990, Mr. Nelson Lund replied again on White House
stationery—stating "We believe that our position has been adequately
explained in previous correspondence."
Indeed it has, and that position is that
George Bush is a bigot.
On February 21, 1990, American Atheists
wrote to every member of the United States Congress asking that body to pass
a resolution condemning discrimination against Atheists by any elected or
appointed official of government. The offered resolution read:
"No person in public life may be
free to impugn the patriotism of any minority group because of that
group's opinion in respect to religion. President George Bush is herewith
censured for his public expression of August 27, 1987, at which time he
stated: 'I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor
should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.'"
You don't need to guess how many Senators
and Representatives answered that letter: there were none. At this point,
American Atheists sent a list of the members of Congress to all of its
membership and asked each one to write or telephone their Congressmen.
Hundreds of angry letters and telephone calls were received at the American
Atheist GHQ during the next several months as it became obvious that the
elected Congress was composed entirely of politicians too damn yellow to
challenge Bush. In just one campaign incident, American Atheists was able to
teach thousands of the nation's top-notch citizens that their government did
not give a damn about them. This exercise added appreciably to the
malcontentedness in the nation and rightly so.
American Atheists then sent every single
columnist in the united states a packet of information-- from Pat Buchanan
to Jim Fain. only one was courageous enough to write a lengthy article on
the matter: Tom Tiede. and the newspapers in which Tiede was syndicated did
print his column taking the president to task. a little later, the CNN
feature program Larry King Live broadcast a quarter-hour interview
with Mr. Robert Sherman, as he detailed the perfidy of President Bush.
When George Bush appeared on the campus of
the university of Texas on may 19, 1990, American Atheists placed a
full-page advertisement in the Austin American-Statesman detailing the above
and demanding an apology and an explanation. The founders of American
Atheists, a thirty-year-old organization, are both honorably discharged
veterans: Richard E. O'Hair, U.S. Marines (totally and permanently
disabled); and Madalyn O'Hair, women's army corps. Both served in world war
II.
On december 23, 1990, in Chicago, Illinois
Mr. Robert Sherman met with Ed Derwinski, the secretary of the department of
veteran's affairs, to discuss exclusion of American Atheists from veteran's
groups which have been chartered by the United States Congress. Mr.
Derwinski said he would do "absolutely nothing" about the discrimination. On
January 3, Mr. Sherman crossed paths with Ed Derwinski again at the Illinois
inaugurations. He asked Mr. Derwinski, at that time, what American Atheists
could do to have the Bush administration take an interest in the problem of
discrimination against American Atheist veterans. Mr. Derwinski's response
was:
"What you should do for me is what
you should do for everybody: believe in God. Get off our backs."
When Mr. Sherman was in Washington, D.C.,
on another issue on March 20, 1991, he again met with Mr. Derwinski, who, on
this occasion, shouted that the Atheists should "get off his back," that the
Bush administration would do nothing for them, and that they would need to
"sue" to end discrimination against them. To add pointed insult to injury,
the city of Chicago Commission on Human Rights refused to permit American
Atheist veterans to appear as a group in the fourth of July "welcome home"
parade for the veterans of Desert Storm in that city.
In the corridors of American history,
Atheists have loomed large: Clarence Darrow, Margaret Sanger, Mark Twain,
Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, Albert Einstein, California's governor Culbert
L. Olson, Thomas Edison, the great botanist Luther Burbank, and James
Smithson, founder of the Smithsonian institution. the list is [can become
very] long.
American Atheists ask that you write to
George Bush, president of the united states, at the white house, 1600
Pennsylvania avenue, Washington, DC 20500 and ask him for an apology to this
group which comprises 9 percent of the population.
Copies of this brochure (order #8286) are
available at the cost of ten cents each from:
American Atheist Veterans
7215 Cameron Road
Austin TX 78752 |
