Yes, NC, there is an Establishment Clause.

So, an atheist gets elected to city council in a North Carolina town....

Yeah, I know. North Carolina, where Senator Elizabeth Dole tried to smear Democratic opponent Kay Hagan as being an atheist, which may have actually backfired on her, since Hagan won. But then again, Hagan wasn't an actual atheist. Cecil Bothwell is. According to this story, some people are having a problem with his unbelief:

Bothwell ran this fall on a platform that also included limiting the height of downtown buildings and saving trees in the city's core, views that appealed to voters in the liberal-leaning community at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains. When Bothwell was sworn into office on Monday, he used an alternative oath that doesn't require officials to swear on a Bible or reference "Almighty God."

That has riled conservative activists, who cite a little-noticed quirk in North Carolina's Constitution that disqualifies officeholders "who shall deny the being of Almighty God." The provision was included when the document was drafted in 1868 and wasn't revised when North Carolina amended its constitution in 1971. One foe, H.K. Edgerton, is threatening to file a lawsuit in state court against the city to challenge Bothwell's appointment.

"My father was a Baptist minister. I'm a Christian man. I have problems with people who don't believe in God," said Edgerton, a former local NAACP president and founder of Southern Heritage 411, an organization that promotes the interests of black southerners.

The head of a conservative weekly newspaper says city officials shirked their duty to uphold the state's laws by swearing in Bothwell. David Morgan, editor of the Asheville Tribune, said he's tired of seeing his state Constitution "trashed."

On one hand--wow, there really still are laws on the books forbidding atheists to be office-holders. On the other hand, like Bothwell, I kind of think seeing a suit actually brought would be "fun", in the sense that this law would be sure to be struck down as unconstitutional, and that would be not just fun, but important. When the "avowed atheist" in the story describes public acknowledgement of atheism as "political suicide", he's talking about a real prejudice. The national discussion about faith and politics in America isn't just about whether someone is a Christian or not, but whether someone is even the right kind of Christian. (For example, if one's definition of Christian includes the word "conservative"--then liberal Christians would not be "really Christian".)

Disqualifying someone from eligibility for office on the basis of religion is just weird and old fashioned--but it would be interesting to see just what sort of a case the "anti-atheists" might bring.