Talk:North Carolina House of Representatives

No religious test clause
The current version of the article states that, "the constitution specifies that ... no elected officials may deny the existence of God, although [that] provision is not enforced because it violates the no religious test clause of the United States Constitution."

That is incorrect. Or, at the very least, it certainly isn't NPOV.

The relevant provision in the NC Constitution reads, "The following persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God."

This provision of the NC Constitution does not violate the no religious test clause of the United States Constitution, since that clause, by its own language, limits its scope to offices "under the United States" -- that is, to federal offices, only. As the No Religious Test Clause Wikipedia article correctly notes, "This [clause] has been interpreted to mean that no federal employee, whether elected or appointed, career or political, can be required to adhere to or accept any religion or belief." The clause does not apply to State offices.

Moreover, there apparently has not been a court test of this provision of the NC Constitution, probably because it is quite toothless. It does not require candidates or officeholders to affirm the existence of God, only that they not deny His existence. Since publicly denying the existence of God would probably be political suicide in most districts, most candidates are understandably disinclined to do so anyhow, regardless of what they actually believe.

I'm going to change the current language to delete the last 13 words ("because...Constitution"). I agree that this provision of the NC Constitution doesn't appear to be enforced, but the reason isn't that it violates the no religious test clause of the U.S. Constitution. Rather, the reason there's been no enforcement of this provision is simply that the issue doesn't often come up. There haven't been any test cases in which a politician denied the existence of God, and someone went to court to have him ruled ineligible to run for office. (I'd wager that most politicians would be delighted to run against an opponent who "came out against God," and so would have no desire to have such an opponent ruled ineligible.) NCdave (talk) 04:42, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

== "Elsewhere, the constitution specifies that no elected official shall be under twenty-one years of age, and that no elected officials may deny the existence of God, although the latter provision is not enforced. ==

Because the legal system is based often times on the literal text of a document, I believe that the — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alex the Nerd (talk • contribs) 15:20, 19 November 2017 (UTC)