Text of Tennessee House Bill HB 615
And the third Dixie state comes on board with such a measure, because Dixie states have nothing better to do with their constituent’s tax money than slap all the constituents in the face who are not Christians. State Representative Jerry Sexton (R-Bean Station) introduced the bill.
Essay below the orange smoke of burning books.
The bill does not specify which version of the Bible (unlike Mississippi’s bill), possibly to keep from offending different disparate sects of Christians. (Mississippi’s specifies the Protestant version of the King James Bible.)
Such bills fly in the face of the Constitution of course, yet are practically guaranteed to pass. They are something like anti-pornography bills: if you come out against the bill, you are painted as “against Christianity” or “pro-pornography.” (You are not painted as pro-Constitution.)
They are efforts to chip away at the Separation of Church and State in the misguided belief that the USA is a Christian Nation™. While it is true that the majority of its citizens are Christians, all manners of faithful and no faith fought and died in the American Revolution, including Muslims, Jews, and atheists under General George Washington. People of all faiths and none have distinguished themselves in every battle this nation has entered since.
If the bill were to make the Catholic version of the Bible or Qur’an the official state book, the lawmakers would be fighting just as hard against the bill as this lawmaker is wasting time fighting for it. However, he is not pandering for the Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, or atheist voting blocs.
Note the past attempt in Raleigh, North Carolina to oust an atheist city council member who took an affirmation of office instead of swearing an oath on a Bible. That attempt cited the North Carolina state constitution’s required assent to the existence of a supreme being to serve as a public official. (While the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution specifically bars religious tests for public office, more Dixie states seem to be challenging that notion; Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore is another example — Moore cited his religious beliefs in his recent order to defy the Federal courts on the issue of marriage equality in his state. Moore was previously ousted from the state supreme court after placing a Ten Commandments monument in the courthouse; he was subsequently re-elected.)
Such bills, even without enforcement authority, can later be used to support changing such things as official affirmations to include using the “official state book” (without specifying the book, of course). This would be a slippery slope argument, except Raleigh and Alabama have already shown it is not.
If such a bill were introduced in this very religious state it would be difficult to take a stand against the bill without appearing one is also taking a stand against religion. (That is the point of such bills.)
Such actions are blatant pandering. They are divisive. They do not make us “from many, one” as our old national motto read.
The back of the United Kingdom’s £10 note has a rendition of Charles Darwin. Our notes have “In God We Trust,” but only since 1955. The Knights of Columbus made a concerted effort to get that put there, and in the Pledge of Allegiance. I am old enough to remember notes in circulation that did not have the phrase on them. I used to carry a 1950 $10 note to show people it was not always there.
The Pledge of Allegiance was written by a Baptist minister (Francis Bellamy), without the divisive sectarian phrasing. Baptists were keenly aware of the mixture of Church and State when they were in the minority: in colonial America they were harassed, exiled, jailed, and killed for their beliefs. Now that they are a powerful sect they have chucked overboard their previous stance and are all-in for (to paraphrase President Eisenhower) turning the nation over to the religio-industrial complex.
Senator Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.), sometimes known as “Mr. Conservative” for clearly elucidating conservative thought and bringing it into the American political mainstream, warned in the Eighties about the rise of the Religious Right and how it would destroy the Republican Party that he so loved.
In a speech on the Senate floor in 1981 during the Reagan Administration, Senator Goldwater said:
"By maintaining the separation of Church and State, the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars . . . Can any of us refute the wisdom of Madison and the other framers? Can anyone look at the carnage in Iran, the bloodshed in Northern Ireland, or the bombs bursting in Lebanon and yet question the dangers of injecting religious issues into the affairs of state?"
Goldwater concluded with a warning to the American people.
"The religious factions will go on imposing their will on others, unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternatives. . . We have succeeded for 205 years in keeping the affairs of state separate from the uncompromising idealism of religious groups and we mustn't stop now. To retreat from that separation would violate the principles of conservatism and the values upon which the framers built this democratic republic."
Senator Goldwater’s prediction is coming true. That bodes ill for our nation, and the world. Alexis de Tocqueville, in his XIX Century book Democracy in America noted the USA was one of the most religious nations on Earth precisely because of that separation of Church and State. It is that separation that has allowed all manners of religious faith to flourish in this country. We ignore their lessons at our peril, for if we do establish a particular book or sect as official, we extinguish Freedom of Religion.
While the United States has made many missteps in its past, and is likely to do so in its future, it is that separation of Church and State that makes our nation stand out amongst all others in history, a secular democratic republic in which all faiths and no faith are welcome.
The Mormon science fiction writer Orson Scott Card also gave such a warning in his presentation “Secular Humanist Revival.” (I have a copy of this presentation: it is well-worth listening to. Mr Card presents himself as a “secular humanist preacher,” using the meter and tone of a preacher to get his point across.) Mr. Card also called out the attempt by certain religious factions trying to subvert the Republican Party and the education system. He called on his listeners to not simply sit back and watch, but take the fight to the schoolhouse and the statehouse to maintain a society free to worship, or not, as it likes.
His presentation is available for free download at the Website The DNA Store:
http://www.thednastore.com/...
Even earlier, Christian writer Sinclair Lewis also warned us of this pernicious creep of religion into the state in his book It Can’t Happen Here. In his fictional novella, a fundamentalist minister, Nehemiah Scudder, is elected President. Reverend Scudder then proceeds to impose a fascist theocracy on the USA, in the name of saving the USA from its moral failings.
Selecting the name Nehemiah was no accident by Mr. Sinclair; all one has to do is read the Book of Nehemiah in the Bible to see. Aside from the long boring list of names in its opening chapters (that directly contradicts the Book of Ezra’s long boring list of names), Nehemiah was an uncompromising fundamentalist in his day. The results of that uncompromising fundamentalism are left to the reader.
We have the lessons of history to repeat if we choose to ignore them. Mr. Sinclair’s, Mr. Card’s, and Sen. Goldwater's warnings are to the religious as well as the non-believer. If the religious think it is their religion that will be imposed, they are sadly mistaken. When religion rules the state, variance from orthodoxy is severely punished. History shows us that.
"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 Pres. George Washington and ratified by Unanimous Consent in the Senate, signed by Pres. John Adams, June 10, 1797
Mon Feb 16, 2015 at 5:20 AM PT: As pointed out to me, I got my book characters wrong.
Heinlein created Scudder for his Future History. Buzz Windrip is the character that appeared in "It Can't Happen Here."