GOP Rebranding Watch: NC Republicans Sponsor Bill to Declare Christianity the State Religion
Road sign via ShutterstockIt’s an explicit violation of the First Amendment of the US Constitution, and will certainly be struck down in court if they actually pass this mind-numbingly stupid bill, but nonetheless Republicans in North Carolina are trying to declare Christianity the official state religion.
The word for this is “theocracy.” As usual, Republican priorities are totally screwed up — wasting money on pointless anti-Constitutional legislation that will never stand, and exposing themselves as fanatical religious nutjobs in the process. Pitiful.
RALEIGH, N.C. — A bill filed by Republican lawmakers would allow North Carolina to declare an official religion, in violation of the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Bill of Rights, and seeks to nullify any federal ruling against Christian prayer by public bodies statewide.
The legislation grew out of a dispute between the American Civil Liberties Union and the Rowan County Board of Commissioners. In a federal lawsuit filed last month, the ACLU says the board has opened 97 percent of its meetings since 2007 with explicitly Christian prayers.
Overtly Christian prayers at government meetings are not rare in North Carolina. Since the Republican takeover in 2011, the state Senate chaplain has offered an explicitly Christian invocation virtually every day of session, despite the fact that some senators are not Christian.
