10-18-2007, 05:21 PM
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Re: Rep. Pete Stark's Unbelievable Comments
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Fortney Hillman Stark, Jr. (born November 11, 1931), usually known as Pete Stark, is an American politician, who has been a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives since 1973, representing California's 13th congressional district. The district takes in most of southwestern Alameda County, and includes Hayward, San Leandro and Fremont (where he lives), as well as parts of Oakland and Pleasanton.
[edit] Early and personal life
He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and received an B.S. in general engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1953.[citation needed] He served in the United States Air Force from 1955 to 1957. Resuming his education, he earned an M.B.A. from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley in 1960, and loved the Bay Area so much that he decided to settle there after earning his MBA.
In 1963, Stark founded Security National Bank, a small bank in Walnut Creek. In only a decade, it grew to a $100 million company with branches across the East Bay.
Stark grew up as a Republican, but his opposition to the Vietnam War led him to switch parties in the mid-1960s. He printed checks with peace signs on them, and placed a giant peace sign on the roof of his bank's headquarters.
In 1972, Stark ran in the Democratic primary against 10-term incumbent Congressman George Paul Miller in what was then the 8th District. He won the nomination by a shocking 34-point margin. In the November general election, he won by a narrow 5-point margin. He hasn't faced another contest nearly that close, and has been reelected 16 times. He has only dropped below 60 percent of the vote once, in 1980. His district has changed numbers three times, from the 8th (1973-75) to the 9th (1975-93) to the 13th (since 1993).
Stark is the first openly nontheistic member of Congress, as announced by the Secular Coalition for America.[1] Stark acknowledged his nontheism in response to an SCA questionnaire sent to public officials in January 2007. In a statement, Stark said he is a "Unitarian who does not believe in a supreme being. I look forward to working with the Secular Coalition to stop the promotion of narrow religious beliefs in science, marriage contracts, the military and the provision of social service."[citation needed]
On September 20, 2007, Congressman Stark reaffirmed his atheism by making a public announcement in front of the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard, the Harvard Law School Heathen Society, and various other atheist, agnostic, secular, humanist, and nonreligious groups.[2]
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Fuckin Godless bastard.
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