The Freedom From Religion Foundation is entering the fray over the controversial decision by the state of Arkansas to place a Ten Commandments monument on its Capitol grounds, by seeking permission to erect a permanent display saying “there are no gods.”
This week the Arkansas secretary of state’s office denied a request by a Hindu group to place a privately funded Hindu statue on statehouse grounds, following passage earlier this year of a state law to erect the bible edict.
In a letter addressed both to Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson and Secretary of State Mark Martins, as chair of the Arkansas State Capitol Arts and Grounds Commission, FFRF Co-Presidents Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor requested the right to represent the views of citizens who reject the bible or religion.
“Most freethinkers find the Ten Commandments to epitomize the childishness, the vindictiveness, the sexism, the inflexibility and the inadequacies of the bible as a book of morals,” the couple noted.
“The first commandment,’Thou shalt have no other gods before me,’ is reason alone to have vetoed the Ten Commandments bill that passed your legislature this year. It is not the business of the State of Arkansas to tell citizens which gods to have, how many gods to have or whether to have any gods at all!”
FFRF, a national state/church watchdog representing more than 22,700 nonreligious members, is seeking the right to erect, with its own funds, a stone monument reading:
MAY REASON PREVAIL
There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell.
There is only our natural world.
Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.Freedom depends on freethinkers
KEEP STATE AND CHURCH SEPARATE
Presented (add date) to the State of Arkansas on behalf of the membership of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, in honor of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
FFRF had written Hutchinson in April asking him not to place the monument.
FFRF also sent the Arkansas officials a small brochure, titled: “What’s Wrong with the Ten Commandments?”
