Republican North Carolina state legislators have proposed a bill that would allow the state to establish a state religion and further declares the state exempt from the Constitution and court rulings. What is astonishing is that eleven GOP members are pushing the law, which rejects not just the core principles of our country but would move the state closer to the model of government currently ripping Egypt and other nations apart in mixing religion and government. The main sponsors, state Reps. Carl Ford (R-China Grove) and Harry Warren (R-Salisbury), seem to have little more judgment than they do knowledge of our Constitutional system. Obviously, the law is facially unconstitutional but it is the contempt for our separation of church and state that is truly unnerving in these members.
The sponsors insist that as a sovereign state, North Carolina cannot be barred from establishing an official religion. The bill reads as follows:
SECTION 1. The North Carolina General Assembly asserts that the Constitution of the United States of America does not prohibit states or their subsidiaries from making laws respecting an establishment of religion.
SECTION 2. The North Carolina General Assembly does not recognize federal court rulings which prohibit and otherwise regulate the State of North Carolina, its public schools, or any political subdivisions of the State from making laws respecting an establishment of religion.
This is part of a belief that the First Amendment only applies to the federal government. Under this theory, the rights of free speech, free press, assembly, and religion can be denied by states. Notably, North Carolina’s Constitution still prohibits people who do not believe in God from taking public office.
Ford attended a Community College in 1978 and has a high school degree. He is described as “Broadcaster, owns two Gospel music stations.” He stated his priority is “Anything having to do with pro-life” followed by transportation. He also stressed that “I just read we moved up in the rankings and I know the per pupil spending is pretty high.” So he wants to cut back on public education, which may be a good reason for a state religion to start praying for the future of the state in a competitive global market.
Warren has a degree from Kent State University, 1972. Warren worked as a Human Resources Specialist for Tar Heel Capital Corp., one of the largest Wendy’s restaurant franchises.
Source: WRAL
Why do the legislators, particularly the ones of the Republican persuasion, hate America? Isn’t always the ones who wrap themselves in the Flag and the Constitution that are the first to throw both out the window when it is convenient?
If they do establish a state religion which form of corporatism will it take? To which Jesus will it pray, the almighty entrepreneur ?
Who said there is a NEW SOUTH? New South looks a lot like the old south but with money.
Should be “Even if…”
If if you’re a states rights-type of person, the bigger problem is that the NC state constitution bans the establishment of a religion
Article VI (Section 3) states: “…members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this [federal] Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”
Following the Civil War, confederate officers/soldiers could have been executed but as a gesture of amnesty and unity were instead required to swear (or affirm) allegience to the United States Constitution in order to serve in government and avoid severe punishment.
During the Jim Crow era laws in some southern states were passed to subvert the U.S. Constitution (lunch counters, riding at the back of the bus, etc.) which prompted the federal government to step in resulting in the Civil Rights Act, Voting Act, etc.
You mean to tell me that man has been on the moon…. I once saw a cow jump over it…. I swore once I saw a pig fly…. Or was that a fly on a pig…. I get confused….and if you’ve ever seen big foot you’d know it too….
If this does not undermine the constitution and and the lawfully elected government then what does?
Where is the House Committee on Un-American Activities now that we really need them?
More Southern, undereducated Republican theocrats! Now that’s a Big Tent strategy if ever I saw one. Barely a third of all Americans want Christianity enshrined as our national religion — about the same amount who believe in BigFoot and who deny the moon landing. We’d best realize straight up that one third of the population is batcrap crazy.
So states can ban the Second Amendment also? Most states would ban guns today using this legal rationale. If you can ban the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment then you can certainly ban any other amendments (women’s voting rights, African-American rights, etc.).
Fallacy of equivocation.
A good faith argument isn’t necessarily a logical argument and the legislative history is quite clear and the intent of the Founders is found in the words of Madison himself:
“Congress should not establish a religion and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contary to their conscience, or that one sect might obtain a pre-eminence, or two combined together, and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform”. – Annals of Congress, Sat Aug 15th, 1789, pages 730 – 731.
“The experience of the United States is a happy disproof of the error so long rooted in the unenlightened minds of well-meaning Christians, as well as in the corrupt hearts of persecuting usurpers, that without a legal incorporation of religious and civil polity, neither could be supported. A mutual independence is found most friendly to practical Religion, to social harmony, and to political prosperity.” – Letter to F.L. Schaeffer, dated Dec. 3, 1821.
“Notwithstanding the general progress made within the two last centuries in favour of this branch of liberty, and the full establishment of it in some parts of our country, there remains in others a strong bias towards the old error, that without some sort of alliance or coalition between Government and Religion neither can be duly supported. Such, indeed, is the tendency to such a coalition, and such its corrupting influence on both the parties, that the danger cannot be too carefully guarded against. And in a Government of opinion like ours, the only effectual guard must be found in the soundness and stability of the general opinion on the subject. Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together. It was the belief of all sects at one time that the establishment of Religion by law was right and necessary; that the true religion ought to be established in exclusion of every other; and that the only question to be decided was, which was the true religion. The example of Holland proved that a toleration of sects dissenting from the established sect was safe, and even useful. The example of the colonies, now States, which rejected religious establishments altogether, proved that all sects might be safely and even advantageously put on a footing of equal and entire freedom; and a continuance of their example since the Declaration of Independence has shown that its success in Colonies was not to be ascribed to their connection with the parent country. if a further confirmation of the truth could be wanted, it is to be found in the examples furnished by the States which had abolished their religious establishments. I cannot speak particularly of any of the cases excepting that of Virginia, where it is impossible to deny that religion prevails with more zeal and a more exemplary priesthood than it ever did when established and patronized by public authority. We are teaching the world the great truth, that Governments do better without kings and nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson: the Religion flourishes in greater purity without, than with the aid of Government.” – Letter to Edward Livingston, dated July 10, 1822.
“Veto Message, Feb 21, 1811 By James Madison, to the House of Representatives of the United States: Having examined and considered the bill entitled “An Act incorporating the Protestant Episcopal Church in the town of Alexander, in the District of Columbia,” I now return the bill to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, with the following objections:
Because the bill exceeds the rightful authority to which governments are limited by the essential distinction between civil and religious functions, and violates in particular the article of the Constitution of the United States which declares ‘Congress shall make no law respecting a religious establishment.’
The bill enacts into and establishes by law sundry rules and proceedings relative purely to the organization and policy of the church incorporated, and comprehending even the election and removal of the minister of the same, so that no change could be made therein by the particular society or by the general church of which it is a member, and whose authority it recognizes. This particular church, therefore, would so far be a religious establishment by law, a legal force and sanction being given to certain articles in its constitution and administration. Nor can it be considered that the articles thus established are to be taken as the descriptive criteria only of the corporate identity of the society, inasmuch as this identity must depend on other characteristics, as the regulations established are in general unessential and alterable according to the principles and canons by which churches of the denomination govern themselves, and as the injunctions and prohibitions contained in the regulations would be enforced by the penal consequences applicable to the violation of them according to the local law.
Because the bill vests in the said incorporated church an authority to provide for the support of the poor and the education of poor children of the same, an authority which, being altogether superfluous if the provision is to be the result of pious charity, would be a precedent for giving to religious societies as such a legal agency in carrying into effect a public and civil duty.”
There is nothing unclear about the existence and the purpose of the Separation of Church and State Doctrine.
So at what point do they decide which denomination is to be the one of the state? When do folks have to go in the dark of night to practice their own Faith(s) that is not the state’s mandated religion?
More ridiculousness (that word is so inadequate) from these republican zealots who cannot for sure see the speck in their eye.
One more group of idiot politicians fiddling while Rome burns. Wouldn’t it be grand if they’d spend their time on writing legislation that would actually have a positive impact on their constituents and their state economy?
There is a good-faith argument that the Establishment clause was not intended to apply to the states, and was in fact designed in part to protect municipal establishments of religion popular in New England at the time. Note the curiousness of the word choice “respecting an establishment of” as opposed to “establishing a.” The legislative history is quite unclear. In any event, Stare Decisis certainly governs, but the interpretation is not “facially” implausible by any means from a standpoint of first principles.
at least a great waste of time
There must be nothing important to do at the NC legislature.
Why not…
Is it me or have a great many legislators throughout this country, recently lost their minds and common sense and have become detached from the law and reality?
The blind leading the blind. To quote one of Gene’s favorites..Stupid is as stupid does!
North Carolina has a new republican governor that has shifted toward the tea party. I wonder if he supports these fellow tea party republicans in their latest unconstitutional effort. It looked like North Carolina might turn blue in 2008 but now it appears to be going the way of the rest of the southern red states.
If these goonie birds want to do some real good for their constituents, they’d forget about a state religion and push for a state bank.
Aside for the issues of legality, aside from these legislators demonstrating they they don’t understand the basis of our country, this legislation is plain stupid.
This is going to motivate the opposition (from all parts of the political spectrum) to fight republicans.
Are there no more pressing issues in North Carolina (as an example, unemployment)?