One Man’s Fight for Freedom From Religion

The occasional phone call comes in for Stephen Thorne these days telling him he’s going to burn in hell. A handful of agitated callers have left messages on his Dial-An-Atheist answering machine--they say they’re praying for him.

Thorne is the 32-year-old Escondido man who has taken upon himself the awesome task of protecting San Diego County’s right to “freedom from religion.” As founder of the county’s new chapter of American Atheists, his holiday season was a busy one.

First, Thorne hired a plane to fly over a San Diego Chargers game trailing a banner for the fledgling Dial-An-Atheist service. By day’s end, the tape-recorded pep talk for the godless had played 90 times--doubling its previous one-day record.

Next, Thorne materialized before the Escondido City Council, asking for removal of the “Christ lives” banners fluttering above Valley Parkway. The Council declined even to ask its lawyer for an opinion--a stance Thorne disparages as “pretty chicken.”

Now, he’s taking on the Escondido Public Library. Its trustees recently declined his offer of a subscription to American Atheist magazine. They cited a policy against periodicals promoting sects, though Thorne notes the library is full of Christian titles.

Thorne discovered atheism in 1983 when he saw the founder of Texas-based American Atheists on television. “Oh, it was reason, it was common sense!” remembers Thorne, a county mental health worker, raised a Methodist. “It was stuff that made sense to me.”

So last summer, he started the San Diego chapter. Now, he says, the mailing list has stretched to 500. There are regular meetings, atheist blood drives and private screenings of atheist favorites, such as the Scopes monkey trial movie, “Inherit the Wind.”

Thorne believes San Diego needs his group’s help. He cites Roman Catholic Bishop Leo Maher’s campaign against school health clinics and Santee’s new Institute for Creation Research--”a major force in removing science from classrooms and reinstalling the latest thought of the 14th Century.”

Duffy Gets ‘Bill’ed

The annual Cop’er Bowl is fast approaching, when the San Diego Police Department and County Sheriff’s Department repair to San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium to careen around the field and grind each other into the dirt, all in the name of charity.

Now, Police Chief William Kolender couldn’t have had the cheeriest few months, dogged by charges of favoritism and ticket-fixing in his regime, but from the looks of the Cop’er Bowl XI television commercial, it seems that he (or someone else) has preserved a sense of irony.

According to the latest dispatch from the Cop’er Bowl committee, Kolender appears in the commercial dressed as a patrol officer. He makes a traffic stop and the driver is Sheriff John Duffy. Then, because Duffy is such a good driver, Kolender gives him a ticket!

(The ticket, of course, turns out to be a pass to Cop’er Bowl XI on Jan. 24. Police officers and deputy sheriffs intend to distribute others the same way. According to the committee, ticket information also can be obtained by calling 534-5108.)

Palms Away!

Dr. Alan Schwartz is not impressed by the fruit meteorites that come cascading out of the two palm trees in front of his house. Clusters of berries and gooey flowers plop with abandon onto the sidewalk and lawn of his North Park home.

There are marble-sized green berries from the tall Queen palm that accumulate in the well in the roof of Schwartz’s van. Then there are gooey red berries from the smaller Washingtonia palm that get tracked into the house, staining Schwartz’s green rug.

So Schwartz was heartened when he returned home one day recently to find a cherry-picker making its way slowly down his street. Workers under contract to the city were slicing dead fronds off palms and feeding them into a loud grinding machine.

But when Schwartz stepped out later to admire their handiwork, the Queen palm had been trimmed but the red-berried Washingtonia was untouched. Schwartz trailed the crew down the block and asked politely, What gives?

The crew informed Schwartz they are paid only to do Queen palms. The city would hire someone else for the Washingtonias, they thought. They couldn’t say when, of course. And they couldn’t trim Schwartz’s tree privately because it’s on city property.

Indeed, city maintenance manager Robert Nichols says San Diego is revamping its palm-maintenance policy. It has decided to trim Queen palms every 12 months instead of every 18, after a rash of complaints about errant Queen palm seed pods.

But the new schedule has left no money for Washingtonias, Nichols said. Cleaner than Queen palms, they are currently in limbo. Nichols’ office has asked the City Council for a budget increase so it will be able to afford to continue trimming the Washingtonias.

In the meantime, Nichols had no encouraging words for Dr. Schwartz. For his part, Schwartz is tired of complaining. “It just seems like they’re wasting time and money,” he said glumly. “In the meantime, it’s messing up my carpet.”