Several bloggers (such as Jesus' General) have picked up on a story from the Church of Critical Thinking about Margaret Sayre, 70-year old member of the tax-funded Anne Arundel County senior center in Maryland. The centre provides meals for the elderly, and after 9/11 a moment of silence before eating was introduced. However, this has since evolved into the saying of Christian prayers, and while Sayre has no problem with a generic message acceptable Jews or unbelievers like herself, she found the enforced Christian praying too much and so wrote to her representative in the Maryland House of Delegates, Don Dwyer. Dwyer, however, is a hard-core theocrat, and responded that:
If the atheist (sic) of Maryland want something different then I would suggest building an atheist Senior Center where you won't have to hear any prayers but leave my people alone.
He added to the local newspaper, "What is the violation of church and state?... There is no separation of church and state in the Constitution that the atheists profess it to be." He also triumphantly told a Virginia AU member who objected to his dismissal of Sayre:
Fortunately in Maryland our constitution under the Declaration of Rights article 36 still states that in order to serve in elected office you have to believe in God. Isn't that great!!!
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