Tuesday, July 24, 2012

John Kieffer

Today I read an interesting case about a man who is essentially on trial for being an atheist, in Florida of all places.  Accounts state that a group of citizens had gathered for a regularly scheduled school board meeting, but the meeting had yet to be called to order.  A priest began to lead most of the room in prayer.  While not strictly unconstitutional, its clearly a means to subvert the separation of church and state, but there isn't really anything that can be done about it.  In protect, Mr. Kieffer and a woman who was in attendance with him continued about their business during the prayer.  At this point a board member began to verbally attack Mr. Kieffer for not joining in.  Kieffer and his friend's only response was to question if the meeting had been called to order or not.  As it hadn't, they had every right to go about their business.  This wasn't good enough for the school board member who then summoned the police and had Mr. Kieffer arrested on resisting arrest peacefully, disturbing a school, religious, or lawful assembly and disordely conduct.  Two of the charges have since been dropped by the state attorney but one still remains, the remaining charge leaves him facing up to a year in jail.  It is worth noting that Mr. Kieffer did not resist arrest and I'm not really sure how someone "resists arrest peacefully."  Anyway, the following link is kept up to date with the proceedings.

http://free2think.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1414

Freedom of religion works for everyone.

No comments:

Post a Comment