From the Secular Coalition for America newsletter:
An atheist woman, who was originally told she must join or church or her U.S. citizenship application would be rejected, yesterday was granted citizenship.
Margaret Doughty, an atheist and permanent resident of the U.S. for over 30 years, was told by immigration authorities earlier this month that she had until today, Friday June 21, to officially join a church, because her conscientious objections to war were only valid if those beliefs came from religion. On Thursday, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services retracted their demand that Doughty show proof of religious affiliation and informed her that her application for naturalization had been approved.The Freedom from Religion Foundation and the Appignani Humanist Legal Center, sent letters on behalf of Doughty.
Ahhh. That’s good. That’s excellent.
Woohoo!
Wow. I expected her to have to take this to court.
Excellent! Bienvenida Margaret!
What I find really shocking about this is US Rep Blake Farenthold, the Republican Representative for the district Doughty resides in wrote an official letter asking the judge to reconsider. I hope it doesn’t cost him re-election.
But that last name rang a bell. Things I remember from my childhood. Could Blake be related to one of the badass political Texas women I remember from my youth? WTF happened to the progressive Texas of my youth? it all died when the Shrub beat Richards in ’94. Julian and Joaquin Castro are our last hope for us.
Very disappointed to see that a federal judge from the Eastern District of Texas made the original ruling. I thought our judges were cool. One of the judges was about to throw out the federal terrorism charges against members of Occupy Houston and Occupy Austin members after #D12 Houston. A grand jury stepped in and overruled the judges’ decision. The cases go on nearly two years later. I was there. I didn’t see any terrorism.
So sad to see that one of our federal judges is such a shithead, but pretty good to see one of the Farentholds is still fighting the good fight. Make your grandma or great aunt or whoever proud.
People can ‘officially’ join churches? Don’t they just turn up? I can’t imagine what it would mean to ‘officially’ join a church unless it was just their writing down your name on a bit of paper, which doesn’t seem very ‘official’ to me.