It’s safe to say that I am no fan of FauxNews and their faux ‘news’ team and commentators. They seem to have one agenda, which is to prop up the teetering GOP. Well, make those two agendas, the second being the knocking down of anyone and anything that doesn’t help them with Agenda #1.
Like religion. FauxNews and the Christian right keep propagating the myth that religious freedom is under attack by, well, the liberals, the gays, the Muslims, just about anyone that the Christian right and FauxNews deem a threat.
These folks want to take America back to its founding, when it was discovered, settled, and built by Christians and for Christians; they would like us to follow what they say America was founded on, Biblical Law, and not that dusty piece of paper called the Constitution. Let’s just forget about that, eh?
But that’s hard when you have FauxNews, and their faux news team perpetuating the myth that religion is under fire, and Faux News host Dana Perino is just one such person. She wants to shove Christianity down everyone’s throats and, well, if they don’t like it, hit the road.
On a recent episode of that faux news show, The Five, Perino complained about a lawsuit in Massachusetts that was challenging the use of “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance because it violates Constitutional principle of separation of church and state as well as violating the Massachusetts state Constitution. Now, rather than being objective, rather that noting that, in fact, we do have a thing called Separation of Church and State in this country, rather than, oh,
“I’m tired of them. I remember working at the Justice Department years ago when I first started right after 9/11 and a lawsuit like this came through, and before the day had finished, the United States Senate and the House of Representatives had both passed resolutions saying that they were for keeping ‘under God’ in the pledge. If these people really don’t like it, they don’t have to live here.”
That’s right, Dana Perino says if you aren’t Christian, and don’t want to live in Dana Perino’s Christian nation, then she politely asks that you get the fuck out of here.
Now, I could be an ass, and suggest that if Perino doesn’t like the fact that we are not now, nor have we ever been a Christian nation, then she can pack up her hairspray and makeup products and hit the road, but the fact is, this is America, where we are Free to say what we want, Free to practice the religion we want, Free to practice no religion whatsoever.
But let’s get back to Perino’s issue with the Pledge. The fact is that the Pledge of Allegiance violates religious freedom by including the word ‘God’ in it. And it perpetuates the myth that folks like Perino and Faux News blabber about, that America was founded as a Christian nation, of, by and for Christians, devoted entirely to the one Christian God, and therefore all other faiths, non-faiths, questioning faiths do not have the right to exist here.
But, and here’s the part that Perino doesn’t get, that isn’t how the Constitution was written. It very clearly, very plainly, expressly forbids government from respecting any establishment of religion over any other religion. And yet, in 1954, after some 180 years, the GOP-controlled Congress decided that the Pledge of Allegiance needed the words ‘under God’ added to it, and that the words ‘In God We Trust’ be added to our currency.
And then for the new few decades, new words were added to the Pledge by both sides of the aisle, though no one ever suggested putting God in there where she clearly does not belong. It was only after Christian extremists took over the GOP that Congress, under their control, changed the wording, and the definition of religious freedom hasn’t been the same since.
I mean, how call all religions, non-religions, and no religions be equal if we use the Christian God in our pledge an on our money? How can this be? America is a far more diverse nation than it was when it was founded and yet some people in this country seem hell-bent on stifling that diversity.
Even the founders had diverse religious beliefs. That’s why they never included God, Jesus, or Christianity in the Constitution, so that America would be governed by reason and the rule of law instead of religious doctrine.
Here’s what someone said, back in the day:
“Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person’s life, freedom of religion affects every individual. State churches that use government power to support themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of the church tends to make the clergy unresponsive to the people and leads to corruption within religion. Erecting the “wall of separation between church and state,” therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society. We have solved the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason and the serious convictions of his own inquiries.”—President Thomas Jefferson, speaking to Virginia Baptists in 1808.
So, you see, Dana, we are not a Christian nation, and have never been one, But as misguided as you are in your thinking, as wrong as you are in your thought, as confused as you are in your speech, you have the right to live here and worship here and think and speak as you wish here.
But try all of that again before spouting off again about the United States of Christ America.
Just sayin’.
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