The AP reports In North Car­oli­na, Law­suit Is Threat­ened Over Councilman’s Lack of Belief in God:

Detrac­tors of [recent­ly elect­ed city coun­cil­man Cecil] Both­well… are threat­en­ing to take the city to court for swear­ing him in last week, even though the state’s anti­quat­ed require­ment that office­hold­ers believe in God is unen­force­able because it vio­lates the Unit­ed States Constitution.

“The ques­tion of whether or not God exists is not par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing to me,” said Mr. Both­well, 59, “and it’s cer­tain­ly not rel­e­vant to pub­lic office.”

Raised a Pres­by­ter­ian, Mr. Both­well began ques­tion­ing Chris­t­ian beliefs at a young age, he said, and con­sid­ered him­self an athe­ist by the time he was 20. How­ev­er, He is an active mem­ber of the Uni­tar­i­an Uni­ver­sal­ist Church of Asheville and cel­e­brates Christmas.

…a lit­tle-noticed quirk in North Carolina’s Con­sti­tu­tion … dis­qual­i­fies office­hold­ers “who shall deny the being of Almighty God.” The pro­vi­sion was includ­ed when the doc­u­ment was draft­ed in 1868 and was not revised when North Car­oli­na amend­ed its Con­sti­tu­tion in 1971.

One oppo­nent, H. K. Edger­ton, is threat­en­ing to file suit against the city to chal­lenge Mr. Bothwell’s swear­ing in. “My father was a Bap­tist minister,” Mr. Edger­ton said. “I’m a Chris­t­ian man. I have prob­lems with peo­ple who don’t believe in God.” Mr. Edger­ton is a local civ­il rights leader and founder of South­ern Her­itage 411, an orga­ni­za­tion that pro­motes the inter­ests of black Southerners.

…

In 1961, the Unit­ed States Supreme Court reaf­firmed that fed­er­al law pro­hibits states from requir­ing any kind of reli­gious test for office­hold­ers when it ruled in favor of a Mary­land athe­ist seek­ing to be a notary public.

The same con­sti­tu­tion that guar­an­tees Mr. Edger­ton’s hard-won right to vote also ensures that any­one can serve in office, regard­less of reli­gious belief. That Mr. Edger­ton has a prob­lem with Mr. Both­well’s beliefs or lack there­of does­n’t out­weigh the fact that a major­i­ty of the vot­ers in Asheville pre­ferred his plat­form and his record of ser­vice to the com­mu­ni­ty.