LAS VEGAS, Jan. 2 – The leader of the International Raelian Movement has added his support to the growing U.S. atheist and secularist movements pushing for removal of all references to God in President-elect Barack Obama’s upcoming inauguration ceremony.
Michael Newdow, a California attorney named “Honorary Priest” of the Raelian Movement three years ago for suing to remove the words “under God” from the pledge of allegiance, filed another lawsuit this week in Washington, D.C. If successful, the suit would remove any reference to God from all U.S. government procedures, including the inauguration ceremony.
“As a religion, The Raelian Movement doesn’t get involved in politics of any kind, but I hope Barack Obama’s administration will honor the fact that America was founded upon the separation of Church and State,” Rael said in a statement released Jan. 1. “Freedom of religion also means freedom from religion, so to make any religious reference whatsoever in the U.S. government undermines the country’s very foundation. How can one be a patriot and go against the Constitution?”
He then took his point a step further.
“Also overlooked by Christians is the unacceptable reality of the Christian calendar arrogantly imposed on the rest of the world,” he said. “There’s no reason to force millions of non-Christian U.S. citizens and billions of non-Christians elsewhere in the world to use the Christian calendar in all documents. After all, only 15 percent of the world population is Christian. That means 85 percent of the world's population -especially those whose countries are represented in the Unites Nations - are forced to use the Christian calendar. This is an insult to Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Shintoists, Jews and many others. It's very surprising that the U.N., which is supposed
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