"I’m Tired Of this Separation Of Church And State Junk"

It's a day ending in "y," so Lauren Boebert and the American Taliban embarrass themselves yet again

PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 @patriottakes

“I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk.” Lauren Boebert went full theocracy, and proclaimed, “The church is supposed to direct the government” per the founding fathers.

That Republican theocrats are all over dismantling the wall between Church and State is hardly breaking news. Of course, idjits like Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), who barely has a GED (no joke), probably have no idea why the Founding Fathers felt so strongly about the separation of Church and State.

It wasn’t just, as Boebert probably thinks, to keep God out of the public square. The Founding Fathers understood that European history was soaked in blood from wars stemming from various Church-State conflicts. They didn’t want history repeating in the country they were trying to build.

After almost a quarter-millennia of relative internal peace, Boebert probably takes that for granted. She probably sees no reason why we need to continue keeping the Christian Church from its “rightful” place in charge of our government.

The reason we had so many overreaching regulations in our government is because the church complied. The church is supposed to direct the government, the government is not supposed to direct the church. That is not how our founding fathers intended it. And I'm tired of this 'separation of church and state' junk that's not in the Constitution, it's in a stinkin' letter, and it means nothing like what they say it does[.]

She’s correct; the words “separation of Church and State” are nowhere to be found in the Constitution. But that doesn’t mean that the Founding Fathers’ intent wasn’t evident.

Some precedents outside the Constitution make their feelings on the matter very clear. First, there’s Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ʺmake no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,ʺ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.

Then there’s Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli 1797, signed by President John Adams, which declares

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries[.]

Then there’s the Free Exercise Clause of the 1st Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

No, the phrase “separation of Church and State” doesn’t appear anywhere in the Constitution. Then again, it didn’t need to for the Founding Fathers to make their point. You don’t have to be a Constitutional lawyer to successfully argue that the Founding Fathers meant for there to be an impregnable wall separating Church and State.

So when you hear troglodytes like Vincent James proudly proclaiming to be a member of the Christian Taliban and that they’re not going to stop until The Handmaid’s Tale is a reality, you should understand that he’s not a patriot. He’s a criminal and a traitor.

And that the blood he’s willing to spill is yours.

Right Wing Watch @RightWingWatch

If there was any doubt about the far-right's agenda, white nationalist Vincent James makes it explicitly clear: "We are the Christian Taliban and we will not stop until The Handmaid's Tale is a reality, and even worse than that."

Of course, I’m an atheist, but even I know there’s nothing remotely Christian about anything Vincent James or Lauren Boebert are saying. Nothing they have to offer has anything to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ. It’s all and only about political power and social control.

When James talks about bringing The Handmaid’s Tale to life, he’s referring to hanging people from walls. He’s talking about a brutal theocratic autocracy in which the ruling class does as it pleases while those below them live a tightly controlled life in which they have little freedom and less joy.

James is after an America where Conservative White heterosexual Christians sit at the top of the pyramid, and those who aren’t 4/4 are “less than” and left to wait for the scraps tossed their way from those who are.

Conservative White heterosexual Christians will continue to worship Jesus Christ while ignoring the teachings of the deity they worship. He will be used as justification to maintain a strictly stratified sociopolitical order and harshly enforced laws, but the idea of Christian love and charity will be lost on them.

This is the world that Evangelical Christians want, and it’s why they’ve voted overwhelmingly for Presidential candidates whose Christian bona fides were every bit as solid as mine. Evangelicals aren’t interested in an America built on Christian principles; they’re interested in political power and social control…as long as it’s concentrated in their hands.

If Boebert and James have their way, the America we know today will be unrecognizable. Ultimately, it will more closely resemble Gilead, and Margaret Atwood will become more prophet than mere novelist. Atwood published The Handmaid’s Tale in 1985. I can’t imagine she had any idea that her novel would become a blueprint for a dystopian America threatening to become a reality three-plus decades later.

As alarmist as this might seem, I fear it’s also not far from the truth.