#31546: — 07/10  at  09:15 AM
Is that really legal in the US? The fact that he sent a letter to the people alone, would result in his firing in Denmark, no matter the content.

#31549: — 07/10  at  10:06 AM
Better take off my "Republicans for Voldemort" sticker!

#31550: Orac — 07/10  at  10:15 AM
OK, this is scary. To put the power of the state behind an effort to proselytize is exactly what the First Amendment was supposed to prevent.

And, no, I don't think it's legal in the U.S., just on basis of the First Amendment alone. That doesn't mean, unfortunately, that the cops who did this will be punished or sanctioned in any way.

#31551: Laura — 07/10  at  10:29 AM
On a recent trip to VA, we counted jesus fish vs. darwin fish--a great game for the kids! Totals: 6 jesus fish, 0 darwin fish (until we arrived at our host's house; he has a darwin fish). I'll be driving through SC in less than two weeks. Maybe I'll restart the game and hope my Kerry/Edwards bumper stickers don't get me into trouble.

#31552: — 07/10  at  10:32 AM
i think this is more ridiculous than scary. It'll take a whole squad of police doing this before it becomes scary

#31555: Ken Cope — 07/10  at  11:01 AM
I trust everybody has been forwarded the pitch for Survivor: Texas...

Contestants must travel from Amarillo through Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and back to Amarillo, through San Marcos and Lubbock. Each will be driving a pink Volvo with a bumper sticker reading: "I'm gay, I voted for Gore, and I'm here to take your guns."

Contestants will attempt to complete a round trip.

#31560: — 07/10  at  11:34 AM
The letter by itself would probably be legal, though creepy, since it could be said that it had nothing to do with the officer's official status. However, proselytizing during a police stop is almost certainly illegal, especially considering the stated reason for pulling the car over. Still, the only chance of the officers being sanctioned is if the drivers aggressively pursue a court case, which doesn't seem likely.

#31561: — 07/10  at  11:35 AM
My gravatar is missing. :(

#31563: coturnix — 07/10  at  11:37 AM
I haven't been pulled over in 10 years. During one year, prior to the election, that I had my various political stickers on (Price for Congress, Bowles for Senate, Edwards for President and later Kerry/Edwards in two versions - no actual anti-Bush or even funny stuff), I got pulled six times, each time for speeding about 8-10mph above limit while ducking big black monsters with W signs wizzing past me going 90mph.

One of those pulls was right after Reagan died. The officer noted my stickers and gave me a ten-minute sermon how Reagan was the geratest President ever and the greatest human being ever.

When I went to court to pay the ticket I told the judge what happened. He immediately gave me the officer's name and the supervisor's phone-number and told me I have every right to call and complain. Then the judge let me completely off the hook re my ticket. I did not call. I should have.

#31568: Chris Clarke — 07/10  at  11:49 AM
The Oakland PD once pulled me over and approached my truck with guns drawn and pointed at me. The one that reached my door barked something like "keep your fucking hands where I can see them, Pedro!" He then got a closer look at me. I'm guessing that my remarkably non-Latino appearance surprised him, because he holstered his gun and started calling me "sir" and told me I was free to go. I asked what I'd done wrong, and he said nothing,, and they'd stopped me "by mistake," and he hoped I had a good day.

I was in a relatively affluent residential neighborhood, driving a pickup truck, and I had been listening to Norteño music with the windows rolled down.

#31573: charlie wagner — 07/10  at  12:24 PM
Did you check this story out before you posted it?
Personally it sounds as phony as a three-dollar bill. These people had their car impounded and are facing stiff fines and other penalties for their violations.
I think they just need a card to play.

(By the way, when I type the word and press "preview" I get the preview but when I follow up with a "submit" it tells me I didn't type the word and rejects the post. I then have to go back two pages and press "submit" again. Is that the way you want it to work?)

#31574: tim gueguen — 07/10  at  12:32 PM
As far as those fish stickons go I'd like one that said "fish" in the centre. MMMMMMM, fish....

#31577: — 07/10  at  12:51 PM

(By the way, when I type the word and press "preview" I get the preview but when I follow up with a "submit" it tells me I didn't type the word and rejects the post. I then have to go back two pages and press "submit" again. Is that the way you want it to work?)

[insert joke about wanting it to be difficult for charlie to post]

#31580: — 07/10  at  12:59 PM
" My gravatar is missing. :("

Mine has disappeared too. Don't you just feel your freedom of speach limited?

And I have the same problem as charlie, on Firefox that worked fine before.

On the other hand I just discovered that this site has some non-US character coding, so I can sign with my real name with an umlaut 'o'. Of course, instead I bollix the pronounciation for most. (Don't bother, you don't use 'ö' in english... Try 'o' instead.)

On cop stories: I was pulled over in Dallas for slow driving! I was lost following written directions to a friends new apartment. Turned out the cops didn't like a white guy cruising the black neighbourhood i tried to pass.

At the time I was pissed. On the other hand a Texas cop was the best pull over ever. He just said 'You drove (6 mph too fast). It will be 30 dollars; you may pay cash or card."

And no more. I've been pulled over coupl'a times (mostly in Sweden) and they always are more chatty than me...

#31583: — 07/10  at  01:09 PM
Umm... No, 'ö' didn't work in signatures.

BTW, the abbreviated emoticons replacing written ones are no fun. (
) That must be tampering on freedom of speach. (No joke!) But the blow owner must do what the blog owner feels he must do...

#31585: — 07/10  at  01:12 PM
Oooo, am I stupid now! (I should have been easting 1 hour ago...) I meant to insert the source code above to show that it's the site who does it, but I forgot to take out the command itself. New try:

img src="http://pharyngula.org/images/smileys/grin.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="grin" border="0" /

#31590: — 07/10  at  01:29 PM
My gravatar vanished, too! I went to gravatar.com and uploaded a new one. If it appears here, you'll know it worked. If not ... sniff!

#31591: moioci — 07/10  at  01:35 PM
I want a fish sticker that says "GHOTI" in it.

#31592: — 07/10  at  01:38 PM
Hey! My gravatar still works at Fafblog, but not here. (I demand an investigation!)

#31608: PZ Myers — 07/10  at  03:04 PM
There's something funky in the gravatar code here. I'll see if I can fix it.

#31613: Raven — 07/10  at  04:18 PM

Did you check this story out before you posted it? Personally it sounds as phony as a three-dollar bill.

Personally, it sounds as plausible as a $175,000 lawsuit.

"A West Seattle pair have won a $175,000 settlement for an abuse-of-power claim three years after being pulled over for speeding and taken by a state trooper against their will to a church-run anti-abortion counseling center in Kirkland."

(if you run into the Seattle Times registration screen, remember: http://www.bugmenot.com is your friend.)

#31618: Martin Wagner — 07/10  at  04:49 PM
Sorry, Charlie, but the couple's web page includes scans of the actual letter the cop sent (including the envelope), plus copies of the subsequent e-mail communications with police and city of Greer officials, taken from actual screen grabs, plus scans of the return receipts for their certified letters to the chief of police, and the scans of his letter in reply (again with envelope). Seems a lot of hard work to fake all this stuff just to get out of paying some tickets. And obviously the couple seems to have accurately predicted that some Christian might cry "hoax!", which is why they posted all of this proof. (After all, it isn't like you guys aren't predictable.) I know you don't like to see Christians called on the carpet when they do something stupid, but I'm afraid this is just one you're going to have to take on the chin.

#31620: jay denari — 07/10  at  05:20 PM
I got pulled over last year. Supposedly, the cop "randomly ran my plates," but I've always suspected he did it b/c I have anti-Bush, pro-sex and pagan bumper stickers. That was a close one, too: I didn't know my license had been suspended for a ticket I'd completely forgotten about (I'd moved and never got the warning letter.)

#31621: jay denari — 07/10  at  05:22 PM
I got pulled over last year. Supposedly, the cop "randomly ran my plates," but I've always suspected he did it b/c I have anti-Bush, pro-sex and pagan bumper stickers. ... And this was in Massachusetts.

That was a close one, too: I didn't know my license had been suspended for a ticket I'd completely forgotten about (I'd moved and never got the warning letter.)

#31622: Mrs Tilton — 07/10  at  05:51 PM
I should start by saying that I find the policemen's actions utterly reprehensible (not to mention, in the specifically American context, unconstitutional).

What puzzles me a bit, though, is why an atheist would be more upset about this than any other decent person should be. After all, a pagan holds beliefs that are, from the freethinking perspective, as ludicrous as any other religious beliefs. Squint one's eyes a bit, and this could have been a New Light Presbyterian sheriff flagging down a car bearing Old Light Presbyterian bumper-stickers.

To a policeman (whether he have any particular religious beliefs or not) in his official capacity, the particular religious beliefs (or lack thereof) of the citizenry should be irrelevant. These policemen exceeded their brief and should be disciplined for it (though I won't hold my breath); the details are unimportant.

#31623: Mrs Tilton — 07/10  at  05:55 PM
Martin Wagner,

I may be wrong, but I don't think your namesake Charlie is a Christian, actually.

I am, as it happens; and would dearly love to see these policemen called onto the carpet for what they did. Sadly, that's unlikely in America.

#31624: PZ Myers — 07/10  at  05:57 PM
An atheist shouldn't be more upset about it than anyone else. I'd actually be just as aggravated if it were atheist tooling around town with the cops and trying to convince good Baptists to stop by the UU church.

#31626: Martin Wagner — 07/10  at  06:21 PM
Mrs Tilton: Atheists are upset about this for several reasons. For one thing, we strongly support separation of church and state, and what you have here is an instance of a police officer -- a state employee -- using his position as a state employee to proselytize his beliefs, a clear violation of the first amendment. This situation represents clear harassment of members of a minority religion, by a member of the majority religion wearing the mantle of the US government. It's distressingly close to fascism. And, as other posters have pointed out, if this guy would do this to pagans, imagine what he'd do to an atheist driving around with a Darwin fish.

Atheists as a general rule are civil libertarians, and this incident is, again, a violation of civil liberties. We may not agree with someone's ludicrous beliefs, but we support their freedom to hold those beliefs without being harassed for it by a government official in the course of his duties (not in the course of his speaking his mind as a private citizen).

So this isn't about the silliness of paganism vis-a-vis Christianity, it's about the right of US citizens not to have to put up with bullying by a government official, whetever their belief (or lack thereof). Atheists support religious freedom, which, as some people forget, includes freedom from religion.

#31627: PZ Myers — 07/10  at  06:28 PM
Although it is true that druidism is a darn silly religion...as is Catholicism. Still, I'll support people's right to practice those silly religions, short of letting them sacrifice virgins with a golden sickle in the oak forest beneath the full moon.

And I'm not just picking on Catholicism--I imagine druids might have some repugnant rituals, too.

#31628: Martin Wagner — 07/10  at  06:30 PM
Mrs Tilton: If I'm wrong about Charlie, I apologize on that score. I thought I recognized his name from Panda's Thumb, from someone who posts a lot of very trollish evolution-bashing and creationism defenses. If it isn't the same guy, sorry.

PZ is right in his above post. But then, atheists just aren't in the habit of unsolicitied evangelizing.

#31629: PZ Myers — 07/10  at  06:34 PM
It is the same weird guy. He's a rare atheist creationist...I think he's just very confused.

#31630: — 07/10  at  07:06 PM
While driving through Mississippi about a year ago, I stopped to get gas and use the restroom. While I was in the john, some yahoo pulled off the bumper insert with my "Another Carpenter Against Bush" sticker and took off. So far, my "Honk if you understand punctuated equilibria" and Kerry/Edwards stickers have gone unmolested.

#31631: — 07/10  at  07:11 PM
If it had happened to me I probably would have ended up in jail over it. I have a low tolerance for that kind of thing and would have told the cop to stick it as soon as he started telling me about Jesus. Being a firm believer in the freedom of speech I would have used them to let the police know how bogus that is.

#31643: ekzept — 07/10  at  10:57 PM
well, plausible or not, true or not, according to a recent dissenting opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia, the police may be entirely justified:

With respect to public acknowledgment of religious belief, it is entirely clear from our Nation’s historical practices that the Establishment Clause permits this disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities, just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists.

#31644: ekzept — 07/10  at  11:02 PM
i should clarify that i heartily disapprove of Justice Scalia's sentiment. moreover, i wonder what he was smoking.

#31645: ekzept — 07/10  at  11:07 PM

While I was in the john, some yahoo pulled off the bumper insert with my "Another Carpenter Against Bush" sticker and took off. So far, my "Honk if you understand punctuated equilibria" and Kerry/Edwards stickers have gone unmolested.

i'm far from the Deep South, just upstate New York quite near the hometown of that enlightened guy, Randall Terry, and i had my Darwinfish ripped off my car when it was in for service.

#31649: Mrs Tilton — 07/11  at  01:26 AM
Martin,

I don't disagree with anything you wrote above. It's just that none of the positions you advocate strikes me as a specifically atheist position. Same thing goes for PZ's original post. It was the categorisation of that post under 'Godlessness' that threw me, I suppose. The other categorisation makes perfect sense.

#31673: — 07/11  at  09:29 AM
Here's a larger version of the Scalia quote:

Besides appealing to the demonstrably false principle that the government cannot favor religion over irreligion, today's opinion suggests that the posting of the Ten Commandments violates the principle that the government cannot favor one religion over another. See ante, at 19; see also Van Orden, ante, at 11-13 (Stevens, J., dissenting). That is indeed a valid principle where public aid or assistance to religion is concerned, see Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 536 U. S. 639, 652 (2002), or where the free exercise of religion is at issue, Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U. S. 520, 532-533 (1993); id., at 557-558 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment), but it necessarily applies in a more limited sense to public acknowledgment of the Creator. If religion in the public forum had to be entirely nondenominational, there could be no religion in the public forum at all. One cannot say the word "God," or "the Almighty," one cannot offer public supplication or thanksgiving, without contradicting the beliefs of some people that there are many gods, or that God or the gods pay no attention to human affairs. With respect to public acknowledgment of religious belief, it is entirely clear from our Nation's historical practices that the Establishment Clause permits this disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities, just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists. The Thanksgiving Proclamation issued by George Washington at the instance of the First Congress was scrupulously nondenominational--but it was monotheistic. 3 In Marsh v. Chambers, supra, we said that the fact the particular prayers offered in the Nebraska Legislature were "in the Judeo-Christian tradition," id., at 793, posed no additional problem, because "there is no indication that the prayer opportunity has been exploited to proselytize or advance any one, or to disparage any other, faith or belief," id., at 794-795.

Historical practices thus demonstrate that there is a distance between the acknowledgment of a single Creator and the establishment of a religion. The former is, as Marsh v. Chambers put it, "a tolerable acknowledgment of beliefs widely held among the people of this country."

Scalia is a slippery character. He knows he couldn't convince the Supreme Court to support the establishment of a state religion, so he opts for a wedge: State and federal governments can acknowledge "the Creator" without violating the establishment clause. The trouble with this line of reasoning is that the 1st Amendment was intended to protect everyone, regardless of faith. If it is taken to specifically protect the rights of Christians, then it denies equal protection to Americans who are not Christians. Which, incidentially, is a violation of the 14th Amendment as well.

But that sure doesn't stop Scalia! He's a one man walking Constitutional violation.

#31689: Redshift — 07/11  at  11:15 AM
What puzzles me a bit, though, is why an atheist would be more upset about this than any other decent person should be.

I would imagine it's because it is an example of the power of the state being used to press a dominant religious viewpoint on a nonbeliever. In that context, atheists are in much the same boat as members of minority religions.

#31693: Martin Wagner — 07/11  at  11:34 AM
Mrs Tilton: You're right, it isn't a specifically atheist position, perhaps because there is no such position that atheists hold on this issue. This is a matter of civil liberties and church/state separation, not belief vs. disbelief. Atheists view events like these with concern because we can easily see ourselves in the position of the harassed couple, getting probably even worse treatment, especially during this ultra-fundamentalist Bush era.

The only position atheists hold that is specifically atheist is that we don't believe in any gods. That's really the definition of atheism in a nutshell.

#31707: HP — 07/11  at  01:12 PM
"What puzzles me a bit, though, is why an atheist would be more upset about this than any other decent person should be."

I'm not sure I understand this. Are you suggesting that there are other decent people besides atheists?

#31708: Mrs Tilton — 07/11  at  01:13 PM
Martin,

quite so: civil liberties/church-state separation, not belief/disbelief. Though I can see why atheists in Red State America would, unfortunately*, be more highly sensitised to this sort of thing than others, I should expect any decent person committed to a liberal pluralist democracy to take the same stance. (I'd expect this even of a Baptist. Though you'd never know it these days, the Baptist movement in America, if I am not mistaken, traces its roots to Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island. By the standards of the 17th century, Williams was a paragon of tolerance. One would scarce credit it today, but the Baptists used to be passionate defenders of church-state separation. Well - I believe Fred Clark is a Baptist; if so, their old tradition isn't entirely dead.)

* To be clear, what is unfortunate is not than atheists would be highly sensitive on this point -- that would be a Good Thing -- but rather that they would have that sensitivity dinned into them by force in a society that marginalises them. To use Redshifts term, atheists in much of the USA find thmselves (in functional if not doctrinal terms) a 'minority religion'. They would be keen on church-state separation for much the same reason that many religious Jews in a majority Christian society would be (barring the odd Denis Prager or two, hoping to be granted honorary Shintoist Christian status by the evangelical right).

#31709: Mrs Tilton — 07/11  at  01:20 PM
HP,

I wouldn't claim the label 'decent' for myself, of course, but yes, I have met one or two theists to whom the adjective might apply.

In general, though, I tend to apply to atheists, theists and whatever you're having yourself Mark Twain's take on the issue of anti-semitism: 'God damn the Jews, they are as bad as the rest of us.'

More seriously, my comment above referred specifically to one particular atheist, who I decided long ago is to be numbered among the decent (if not always among the even-tempered).

Trackback: Good reason Tracked on: Point Progression Blog Central - Because you can't find eveything on Fox News (207.44.199.176) at 2005 07 11 14:01:11
And this is why I refuse to put bumper stickers on my car. Not only do I worry about slashed tires, scratched paint, broken windows, and the us...

#31724: ekzept — 07/11  at  05:14 PM
let's take the Scalia point for a second. apart from historical practice and enforceability, what's wrong with insisting religious practice be kept completely out of the public square? he himself says that would be consistent, if inconvenient.

#31773: DeafScribe — 07/12  at  12:26 AM
I moved up to Knoxville, TN, the heart of the Bible Belt, last fall with a bumper sticker that reads, "Any working person who votes Republican is like a chicken who supports Colonel Sanders". I half expected someone would throw a molotov cocktail in the truck bed. Didn't happen. So I raised the bar and added an Evolve fish. Maybe the locals talked, but no one touched my truck.

I suspect people on the street are not as excitable as the media. While the extreme right-wing is busy provoking people with their phony outrage, working people are much more live and let live than we might imagine.

#31780: — 07/12  at  03:11 AM
You don't seem to have eliminated the possibility that the sort of people who might have attacked your truck might also have found that much reading (and the comprehension of the simile within it) too hard or tiring to do.