{"id":11221,"date":"2007-06-23T09:45:09","date_gmt":"2007-06-23T13:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/11221.html"},"modified":"2007-06-23T09:45:09","modified_gmt":"2007-06-23T13:45:09","slug":"remembering-the-man-who-brought-us-godless-notaries-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/remembering-the-man-who-brought-us-godless-notaries-public\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering the man who brought us godless notaries public"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guest Post by Morbo<\/a><\/p>\n

Unless you’re a student of church-state relations, the name Roy Torcaso probably won’t ring a bell.<\/p>\n

Torcaso, a Maryland resident, was working as bookkeeper in the late 1950s. His employer asked him to become a notary public. Torcaso agreed but was then denied the position because he refused to take a religious oath of office. Torcaso, an atheist, said that would violate his right of conscience.<\/p>\n

The case ended up in the courts, going all the way to the Supreme Court. On June 19, 1961, the court issued a unanimous ruling in Torcaso’s favor. <\/p>\n

Declared<\/a> Justice Hugo Black in Torcaso v. Watkins:<\/p>\n

“We repeat and again reaffirm that neither a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally force a person ‘to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion.’ Neither can constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against nonbelievers, and neither can aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When the federal constitution was drafted, a South Carolina delegate named Charles Pinckney recommended adding a provision to Article VI banning religious qualifications for public office. The delegates agreed, and the provision was adopted. But that measure is limited to federal office.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Roy Torcaso’s case, religious tests were extinguished at the state level as well. At the time Torcaso filed legal action (backed by the ACLU), Maryland and six other states — Pennsylvania, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina — limited public office to those who believe in God. Although these provisions are still on the books, thanks to Torcaso they are dead letters. (See the language of these provisions here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Roy Torcaso died on June 9. He was 96 years old and had prostate cancer. A few years ago, I lived in his neighborhood. I had the honor of meeting Roy once.
\n
\nI’d call him feisty. Roy was a humanist counselor, and at the time I met him, he was pushing for the right to be able to preside at wedding ceremonies in Virginia.<\/p>\n

If all he ever did was challenge religious tests for public office in court, Torcaso would be remembered. But he did a lot more<\/a>. He was an environmental activist and stood up for civil rights at a time when that was not always a popular idea.<\/p>\n

In the 1960s, Roy’s neighborhood in a Maryland suburb of D.C. called Wheaton was being integrated. Some people did not react well to this. They circulated a petition, insisting that the African-American families be told to leave. Roy not only refused to sign, he personally visited the black families to welcome them to the neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Roy Torcaso lived a full life and advanced religious and civil rights for all of us. I’m thankful that he had the guts to take a principled stand. I also look forward to the day when lawmakers in those seven states realize that it’s time to clear away the last vestiges of bigotry by officially removing those antiquated provisions from their constitutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guest Post by Morbo Unless you’re a student of church-state relations, the name Roy Torcaso probably won’t ring a bell. Torcaso, a Maryland resident, was working as bookkeeper in the late 1950s. His employer asked him to become a notary public. Torcaso agreed but was then denied the position because he refused to take a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11221\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}