http://www.reuters.com/...
The Kootenai County (Idaho) GOP has a proposal for a platform plank to declare Idaho a “Christian state.” If the measure is adopted, it would be put before the state party.
The proposal seeks that Idaho be "formally and specifically declared a Christian state," guided by a Judeo-Christian faith reflected in the U.S. Declaration of Independence where all authority and power is attributed to God, the resolution reads.
The measure argues that the Christian faith is under "strident attack" in the United States, and cites as evidence the absence of Christian traditions and symbols in public institutions such as schools.
"We're a Christian community in a Christian state and the Republican Party is a Christian Party," said Jeff Tyler, a member of the committee and backer of the draft resolution.
Well, it’s good to see the Republican Party in Kootenai County is being truthful: they are a theocratic party, not a conservative one. A conservative party would pay attention to the Constitution. Republicans all love to claim they are all about the Constitution (except when they are not). They also forget Muslims, deists, atheists, and agnostics all fought in George Washington’s army during the revolution (and every war thereafter).
The Handmaid’s Tale and It Can’t Happen Here are supposed to be warnings, not instruction books.
Of course, the Declaration of Independence says no such thing, and the Constitution specifically avoids mention of religion, except no religious tests for offices of public trust, and Congress shall not establish a religion nor prohibit its free exercise.
Those who continually seek to push religion in the public square should be minded of the words of Jesus in Matthew, immediately before the Lord’s Prayer. I am an atheist and can figure out what this means:
6:5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
6:6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
6:7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
6:8 Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.
More below the orange burning bush.
We know how this turns out; this has played out in law and party platforms before.
Any Republican who holds out that this is an inappropriate platform plank will not be painted as standing up for the Constitution. He or she will be painted as standing against Christianity (and one of those "oppressors" mentioned above).
It is the Secular State that permits the free exercise of all religion. The Secular State is religion's protection against the depredation of government, just as the separation of church and state protects government from religion's depredations.
The Kootenai County GOP would be howling just as loudly for the Secular State if the religion proposed were Islam (or even Catholicism or Judaism, despite the claim of "Judeo-Christian" noted above).
Alexis de Tocqueville in his XIX Century book "Democracy in America" (written after his travels here) noted that it was precisely because of that separation that the USA had the most varied and vibrant religious life of any nation he'd known.
Throw out that separation and declare Christian Sharia at your peril, Republicans, because you might not get the religion you asked for.
8:46 AM MT: "Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion. . . ."
Treaty of Tripoli with the Emirate of Tripoli, Ottoman Empire.
Negotiated by the Washington Administration. Ratified by Unanimous Consent in the Senate, signed by President John Adams, June 10, 1797