On Saturday June 19th, The Atheists of Florida hosted a “Meet the Atheists” event at the Pinellas Park library. 29 people attended this event, 17 of which self identified as atheists. Included in the group were two women who appeared to be affiliated with the tea party as their van had “Pinellas Patriots” written on the windows in pink liquid-chalk.
Aside from the two “Patriot” women, most of the participants were friendly and stuck to the requested format of asking questions of the panel, which included Rob Curry - Executive Director for the Atheists of Florida, Ed Golly – Chair, Tracy Thomas – Secretary, Ellenbeth Wachs – Director Lakeland chapter, and Gina Harvey – President of the USF atheist student alliance.
The two tea party “patriots” were described as confrontational and had to repeatedly be reminded that they were supposed to be asking questions and not just making assertions and belligerent statements.
Eventually Ellenbeth Wachs, who is known to get a bit testy when her patriotism is questioned, had had enough. In response to a barrage of questions along the lines of “why can’t you people be more tolerant?” And “would you be tolerant of a historical prayer in city council as an invocation?” Ellenbeth responded with a very loud “NO!!!” She then went on to point out that just because anti-Semitism was a tradition didn’t mean it was ok when Germany established itself as a Christian nation and wrote anti-Semitism into it’s 25 point charter.
The tea party lady said she thought the comparison of wanting to have a city council say a “traditional Christian prayer” with what happened in Nazi Germany was silly. What is silly is the fact this very same women doesn’t seem to realize that her own hate against people named Juan as evidenced by the “Hate Juan” slogan written on her van is the same sort of hate that led to the slaughter of the Jews by Hitler. Or that her hate is justified by the same adherence to a very angry and exclusive form of Christianity as practiced by the Nazi party in Germany.
Angry form of Christianity? You mean like the style practiced by many teabaggers?
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