A senior at Winthrop University in South Carolina is making plans to run for the state’s House of Representatives in 2010. If he won, he’d be the youngest legislator in United States history.
It’d be a historic win for another reason, too: D.C. Swinton is the president of the Winthrop Organization of Freethinkers (WOOF). In other words: He’s an atheist.
And that in itself is enough to get some people riled up:
… A brief skim over his platform leads to only one possible conclusion: He hasn’t got a prayer.
And even if he did, he wouldn’t know what to do with it.
Swinton is president of the irreligous club Winthrop Organization of Freethinkers (WOOF)…
…
… Either way, judging from their titles, neither book is in sync with the values of South Carolinians, specifically the residents of Greenville County, 57 percent of which are Christian Church-goers, according to Bestplaces.net.
So far, Swinton is about as useful to the people of District 24 as a gift from an atheist is on Christmas morning.
Some of his positions make sense. Some don’t. You can judge them for yourself here.
What’s important to me in this story is that an atheist is running for office. That’s fantastic. You don’t have to support this candidate (especially for that reason alone), but the more atheists who run for elected office, the easier it becomes for the rest of us to come out of the closet, to run for office in the future, and to express our opinions to the masses.
I wish Swinton the best and I hope other atheists consider running for office, too. Forget bus ads — let that be the next trend.
(Thanks to Carrie for the link!)