An Oklahoma lawmaker's sneaky proposal would let the state indirectly fund Christianity

Sen. Dana Prieto wants to amend the state constitution years after voters rejected a similar proposal

This newsletter is free, but it’s only able to sustain itself due to the support I receive from a small percentage of regular readers. Would you please consider becoming one of those supporters? You can use the button below to subscribe to Substack or use my usual Patreon page!

---

A Republican lawmaker in Oklahoma has put forth a resolution that would allow taxpayer funds to promote Christianity… but you’d never know it at first.

While I’ve written a lot about how Christian Nationalists in the state have pushed Ten Commandments bills, and bought Trump Bibles for public schools, and attempted to create the first religious charter school in the country, there have been important signs that the people in the state don’t want any of this.

The most important one occurred in 2016. Article 2, Section 5 of the state’s constitution forbids the use of public money for religious purposes—something known as a “Blaine Amendment”—and Republican legislators hoped voters would overturn that ban. They created a ballot measure that would have removed that section from the document entirely.

But State Question 790 was met with a resounding no. The people did not want the Blaine Amendment repealed. Church/state separation, at least in theory, had been protected.

Since that time, though, Republicans have become even more extreme and more susceptible to conservative Christian rhetoric that the government ought to prop up their faith.

That’s why State Sen. Dana Prieto is now trying a different tactic to convince voters to let the state fund Christianity.

Sen. Dana Prieto (screenshot via YouTube)

Prieto recently introduced Senate Joint Resolution 4, which, if passed, would ask voters to alter the Blaine Amendment in a more subtle way. Instead of having people vote to eliminate it entirely, it would just change the language of that section.

Right now, Article 2, Section 5 of the State Constitution says no public money can be used “directly or indirectly” to support religion or religious institutions.

The amendment supported by SJR 4 would change the constitution so that the only thing banned would be “direct financial” support of religion.

In other words, taxpayer dollars couldn’t be used to build new churches… but the change could allow the Republican-majority government to fund Bibles for public schools under the guise of teaching kids history, maintenance of “historic” buildings that are used for religious services, scholarships for private religious schools, etc. There are all kinds of ways to support religion—and, let’s be clear, Christianity would be the primary beneficiary of this move—that don’t involve writing a check directly to church leaders.

This change would legalize all of it. And by altering the constitution, it would eliminate the most potent weapon opponents have used in state courts. After all, remember that the Oklahoma Supreme Court cited the Blaine Amendment when they ruled against the state-sponsored Catholic charter school:

The expenditure of state funds for St. Isidore’s operations constitutes the use of state funds for the benefit and support of the Catholic church. It also constitutes the se of state funds for “the use, benefit, or support of... a sectarian institution.” The St. Isidore Contract violates the plain terms of Article 2, Section 5 of the Oklahoma Constitution.

For now, the resolution is in the hands of a subcommittee and would have to go through several formal hurdles in the legislature before it’s ever put in front of voters. But with a state legislature that’s almost entirely red, those hurdles are hardly an obstacle.

Democratic State Rep. Mickey Dollens blasted this proposal on Bluesky, saying, “Religious extremists continue finding new ways to take from public coffers, weaken constitutional protections, and force taxpayers to subsidize their religion.”

When I spoke with Dollens over the weekend, he added that this amendment could also allow districts to employ school chaplains. And Republicans aren’t going to stop until they get what they want. The point of bringing these kinds of bills up year after year, he said, was to help lawmakers get familiar with them. They might be alarmed the first time, but eventually, they get used to it.

"Christian Nationalists are playing the long game,” he said. But he also said that if this amendment was ever put in front of voters, he had confidence Oklahomans would vote it down, just like they did in 2016.

We may need to rely on those voters because, unfortunately, Democrats are vastly outnumbered in the legislature. That means educating the public may be the only way to prevent this particular disaster.

Prieto, by the way, is part of the far-right “Oklahoma Freedom Caucus,” which includes guys like Sen. Dusty Deevers (covenant marriage) and Rep. Jim Olsen (Ten Commandments). His bio brags about how he’s “performed in city-wide crusades” and attended Rhema Bible College, a school that exists to train missionaries and ministers.

---