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Thursday, Nov. 11, 2021

Are atheists prohibited from holding office in eight US states?

Kaiyah Clarke, Lead Stories
no

A recent social media post claims atheists cannot hold office in eight U.S. states.

The post leaves out important context. Constitutional clauses in each of the eight states do bar atheists from holding office. However, they have been unenforceable for more than 60 years.

According to a spokesperson for the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a 1961 U.S. Supreme Court case ruling "makes all the state bans on atheists holding office unconstitutional and unenforceable." 

A University at Buffalo School of Law professor also told Lead Stories that such a ban would violate the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment because "freedom of religion under that provision includes the freedom to have no religion."

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

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Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by Gigafact contributor publications.

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Lead Stories is a fact checking and debunking website at the intersection of big data and journalism that launched in 2015. It scouts for trending stories, images, videos and posts that contain false information in order to fact check them as quickly as possible. It actively monitors the fake-news ecosystem and doesn’t wait for reader tips or reports before getting started on a story.

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