According to Article 19, Section 1 of the Arkansas Constitution of 1874 – which my third-great-grandfather helped write – I am ineligible to hold any office in the civil departments of the state government, nor may I testify as a witness in any court.
Why? Because I don’t believe in a divine being.
It will take over 70,000 signatures of registered voters (from Arkansas’s total population of about 3 million) to get the repeal of the constitutional provision on the ballot. Since we are in the buckle of the Bible Belt, the effort to find that many signatures would be Herculean. I seriously doubt many churches would do anything to support the initiative, and most would actively work against it.
That being said, put me down as a scofflaw. I’m a Notary Public and worked for years as a state employee. I’ve testified multiple times and served as a Special Circuit Judge.
Federal law prohibits enforcement of this provision, but its presence still rankles.
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