Republican lawmakers in North Carolina have proposed a bill that they say would allow to the state to establish an official religion and defy the Constitution of the United States.
Nine state House members joined with Republican state Reps. Harry Warren and Carl Ford of Rowan County to sponsor House Bill 494 in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) last month that sought to stop Christian prayers at official Rowan County government meetings.
In 2009, a court found that the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners had violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by using sectarian prayers to open official meetings.
In his ruling, Magistrate Judge Trevor Sharp wrote that Forsyth County prayers "display a preference for Christianity over other religions by the government" and "alienates those whose beliefs differ from Christian beliefs and divides citizens along religious lines."
Warren and Ford's bill would declare that North Carolina is "sovereign" and any court ruling about religion is nullified by the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution.
There really is so much that wrong about this. I've joked that the Republican Constitution reads, "Everyone gets a gun. Praise Jesus. The end." Nothing demonstrates the truth behind that more than this. While Republicans are freaking out over guns control and (wrongly) portraying it as unconstitutional, these guys are lining up to back an unconstitutional law. In fact, it's so unconstitutional that if you wanted to think of some crazy hypothetical example of unconstitutionality, this would be on the short list of examples you might come up with. Republicans are passionate defenders of the Constitution - right up until the point that they want to launch an assault on it.
And the circular logic is just amazing; that you can use an amendment to the Bill of Rights to nullify an amendment to the Bill of Rights. You have to stop trying to follow the reasoning before you get dizzy and puke.
Just when you think state level Republicans couldn't get more crackpottish or hypocritical, they pull something like this. Once again, just when you think you've hit the absolute bottom, you learn that there is no bottom. The GOP talent for being jawdroppingly wrong, backwards, and religiously oppressive is, in fact, endless.
