By Victor Ochieng
Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), the Wisconsin-based atheist group, has written a letter to Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, warning him that his posting of Bible verses on his official social media pages is unconstitutional.
The governor is fond of posting Bible verses on his social media pages every Sunday. Some of the verses he’s previously shared are: “I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all of Your wonderful deeds,” “Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty,” and “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.”
At first, FFRF may not have seen it as something that would become a routine, but soon realized that the governor was doing so each and every Sunday on both his Facebook and Twitter accounts.
This is what prompted the atheist group to write their Tuesday letter, in which they requested that the governor shouldn’t be doing so on his government-related social media accounts.
“Government officials cannot endorse religion, including by regularly publishing Bible verses,” wrote attorney Andrew Seidel. “When it comes to violations of the Establishment Clause, i.e., the government endorsing religion, appearances matter. Government officials cannot appear to endorse Christianity.”
Seidel added, “In this instance, by tying your government office title to two social media pages, you have intimately entwined your official position with the messages you send on those platforms, creating the appearance of official endorsement.”
The FFRF then suggested that the simplest solution to their concerns was for him to stop making such posts. The group added that if he felt he really had to, then he should at least do so on his personal social media accounts that are separate from his government accounts.
“The simplest solution is to stop posting and tweeting Bible verses or any other religious endorsements and to delete those previously disseminated,” Seidel asserted. “If you cannot refrain from using social media to promote your personal religion, then you should open other, personal social media accounts for your personal thoughts, musings, prayers, and Bible verses and leave all your official business for the accounts mentioned above.”
But that wasn’t all. Seidel even suggested that Jesus’ counsel that people shouldn’t make their prayers so as to be seen also applies to posting of scriptures publicly.
“If the law and your oath to uphold the Constitution are not sufficient to convince you to stop, perhaps you might consider reading Matthew 6:5-6, in which Jesus condemns public prayer as hypocrisy in his Sermon on the Mount,” Seidel stated. “None of Jesus’s supposed words mention Twitter—perhaps He wasn’t that prescient—but the condemnation of public piety is reasonably clear.”
So far, no word has come from Hutchison, and so it’s now clear whether or not he’s planning to respond to the letter.
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