CRAZY TENTHERS AT IT AGAIN

UPDATE BELOW



The tenthers are at it again.

It was only a matter of time before this happened in one of those states where they believe President Obama is "taking away their freedoms," and where they think the gummint is shoving all those librul, commie, soshalist, America-hating and Satan-inspired laws  down their throats.

But brothers and sisters, here we have proof of what some brilliant observer of The Land of the Free and Home of the Confused once said:

"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." --H.L. Mencken

And here we have the state of North Carolina and its very own "we-know-what's-best-for-you" legislature wanting to save its little chunk of humanity through declaring a state religion, the Christian religion.


"Establishing their brand of Christianity would give Republicans the opportunity to force their religious views on every citizen of North Carolina, including anti-abortion views, anti-gay views, and any other views they have. These views could in turn be passed as laws to bring the state in line with the new state religion. So even if you aren’t a Christian, you’ll be forced to live the way Republicans want you to live. 

 Republicans have attempted to use the 10th Amendment a lot in recent months in an effort to nullify federal gun laws, federal health care laws, and just about any other laws they hate or disagree with. This latest abuse of the 10th Amendment would strangle religious freedom in North Carolina so that the GOP could sponsor their twisted views of Christianity, placing it on an unfair pedestal above all other religions. This dangerous effort should make every American wary of Republican governance and should make us all question the virtues of leaving the 10th Amendment in place. Perhaps the time has come to lead an effort to repeal the 10th Amendment before Republicans use it to nullify the federal government, the Constitution, freedom, and America itself." --Addicting Info




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.

 In a 2011 ruling on a similar lawsuit against the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners, the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did not ban prayer at government meetings outright, but said prayers favoring one religion over another are unconstitutional. "To plant sectarian prayers at the heart of local government is a prescription for religious discord," the court said. "Where prayer in public fora is concerned, the deep beliefs of the speaker afford only more reason to respect the profound convictions of the listener. Free religious exercise posits broad religious tolerance."

 House Bill 494, a resolution filed by Republican Rowan County Reps. Harry Warren and Carl Ford, would refuse to acknowledge the force of any judicial ruling on prayer in North Carolina – or indeed on any Constitutional topic: "The Constitution of the United States does not grant the federal government and does not grant the federal courts the power to determine what is or is not constitutional; therefore, by virtue of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the power to determine constitutionality and the proper interpretation and proper application of the Constitution is reserved to the states and to the people," the bill states."






What are we to make of yet another attempt by conservatives to do another end-run around the Constitution? To nullify anything a conservative state legislature doesn't like about the Constitution; to pick and choose which US law these conservative legislators believe suits them and which law doesn't?   

[Just imagine if a liberal state like, say, Massachusetts were to nullify the 2nd Amendment.  Can you imagine the head explosions we'd see in Conservaland?]

It's a thing to behold.  The very people who blubber and wail like banshees about freedom and liberty and freedom are busily at work picking and choosing which freedoms they think are best for you:


We've seen states where Republicans control the governorship and legislature make a legal medical procedure so difficult and cumbersome, that many clinics that offer them in those red states have packed up and left, leaving girls and women, who may need abortions, without safe, medical care.  

We've seen governors require the poor to pee in cups in order to obtain bare subsistence from welfare. 

We've recently read that a Tennessee state legislator has proposed withholding welfare from families whose students are not doing well in school.  [Little Johnny is failing geography?  No supper for you, Johnny, or your family until you get an A!  And that goes for those lousy calculus grades, too!] 


We've seen states try to impose difficult requirements for voter ID requirements that specifically target the poor and minorities.

None of the pols who live in those states believe they're taking any sort of freedom away from anyone.  It is only when liberals propose personally invasive or harassing laws is it considered freedom snatching.

But back to the great state of North Carolina and its efforts to impose a state religion on its citizens.  Let's hear what the Father of our Constitution had to say.

James Madison:



"Because Religion be exempt from the authority of the Society at large, still less can it be subject to that of the Legislative Body. The latter are but the creatures and vicegerents of the former. Their jurisdiction is both derivative and limited: it is limited with regard to the co-ordinate departments, more necessarily is it limited with regard to the constituents. The preservation of a free Government requires not merely, that the metes and bounds which separate each department of power be invariably maintained; but more especially that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great Barrier which defends the rights of the people. The Rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment, exceed the commission from which they derive their authority, and are Tyrants. The People who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them, and are slaves."


Mr. Madison continues:


"Because it is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of Citizens, and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The free men of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entagled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much soon to forget it. Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects? that the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?"

MORE HERE:
North Carolina GOP Attempts to Violate the Constitution by Proposing an Official State Religion


Let's hope the legislators of North Carolina come to their senses and act like Americans instead of like potentates in certain Middle Eastern countries act, where their rulers enforce every aspect of state religion.


Here's another conservative pol and panty-sniffer looking out for your "freedoms":

Virginia’s Attorney General Thinks Oral and Anal Sex Should Be Illegal

"Virginia Attorney General and Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli wants to legislate what goes on between your sheets, as evidenced by a petition he filed with a federal appeals court to keep the state’s anti-sodomy laws on the books. Using the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision as its basis, a three-judge panel ruled last month that the portion of Virginia’s “Crimes Against Nature” statute outlawing oral and anal sex between consenting adults is unconstitutional."


UPDATE:


Resolution Is Dead’ – North Carolina House Speaker Rejects GOP Attempt To Declare State Religion