We Are Not a Christian Nation

The constitution guarantees freedom of religion and freedom from religion.

So I was browsing through my RSS feeds and ran across this gem: Texas State Rep: Avoid School Prayer Ban By Reading Christian Proverbs To Students via Think Progress. A Texan representative, Debbie Riddle, has decided that while it may not be ok to read the Bible at large, in classrooms, it’s certainly not harmful to read proverbs. Apparently Debbie is unaware that proverbs is a book within the Bible.

This is part of an ongoing trend of the Christian political machine to find any means possible to circumvent the separation of church and state, defined in  the first amendment of the constitution, as follows:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…

Now, it’s not at all unusual to find Christians trying to indoctrinate children, but this political maneuvering around the first amendment strikes me as a remarkable hypocrisy, and I’m not the only one whose noticed. The delusional “tea party”, an almost comically extremist sect of the republican party, is heavily associated with religion and religious values. In addition, they claim to support the constitution as the document by which our country should be governed.

Enter the hypocrisy: the tea party advocates actions like the one Debbie proposes – and ignores that they are unconstitutional! It drives them absolutely mad that the founders of the constitution (who weren’t at all like the radical christian right of today) built in protection against religious indoctrination in our schools.

And this is only the most recent example: classroom prayer, creationism, bible readings.. these issues seem to sprout up without end.

Christians say they are being attacked on matters like this, and you know what? They are absolutely right (pun definitely intended). These behaviors should be attacked. They are unconstitutional for a reason – we are not a Christian country. If you want evidence of that, take a look at what Mr. John Adams (a “founding father”) had to say on the matter:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion..

There it is – in addition to the first amendment. Read it and weep, ye who would seek to turn the United States into a theocracy.

All this hypocrisy has to stop. If you’re going to use constitution to defend your right to practice your religion, we’re going to use it defend our right to keep the government secular.

Chic-fil-A President: Praise God We Can Discriminate in the USA!

 

Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy

Chick-fil-A Seeks To Distance Itself From Anti-Gay Owner courtesy of Think Progress.

Ok, so that’s not exactly what he said – but it’s a pretty accurate summary. I’m going to let this one mostly speak for itself, but I’ll at least give you the gist.

Mr. Cathy is one of those guys you might meet at a party, talk with him for about 10 seconds, and walk away. Why? He’s likely to say something mind-numbingly ignorant, like:

thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles.

.. in the context of supporting anti-LGBT organizations and agendas. You’d think that as often as religious people complain about persecution, that they wouldn’t be so hypocritical about it, right?

He’s recently come out with a tirade of Christian-themed one-liner’s like that, and his chain’s franchise owners haven’t exactly been thrilled with it. They’ve even released a completely contradictory statement on the official Facebook page:

The Chick-fil-A culture and service tradition in our restaurants is to treat every person with honor, dignity and respect – regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender.

So anyway.. here’s that link again, check it out.

Chick-fil-A Seeks To Distance Itself From Anti-Gay Owner courtesy of Think Progress.