Saturday, January 08, 2005

You'd think this would be a fake quote...

....but I haven't found anything suggesting that it is.

Rob Sherman:
"What will you do to win the votes of Americans who are atheists?"
GW Bush:
"I guess I'm pretty weak in the atheist community. Faith in God is important to me."
RS:
"Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists?"
GWB:
"No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."
A page on the infidels.org site goes on to say:

After Bush's election, American Atheists wrote to Bush asking him to retract his statement. On February 21st 1989, C. Boyden Gray, Counsel to the President, replied on White House stationery that Bush substantively stood by his original statement, and wrote:

"As you are aware, the President is a religious man who neither supports atheism nor believes that atheism should be unnecessarily encouraged or supported by the government."