Most religions work to increase their size and to impose what they believe is the Only Truth on their society. They think they are doing God's Will. The result is lots of Muslim states that seem to be the model for nationalist Christians.
Or like ideologies have done throughout history such as Communism. True believers be they secular or religious represent a threat to anyone who does not share their views. They will impose their views if they get the chance.
The issue, David, is clearly not religion per se, but authoritarianism, fascism, Dominionism, and totalitarianism. That it puts on its prettiest Sunday frock and calls itself religion doesn’t really make the slightest bit of difference.
I can remember in graduate school more than 50 years ago where we were discussing ideologies like communism, and comparing the points between totalitarian religion and totalitarian political beliefs. And fundamentalist Christians are so fond of pointing out, the state becomes the new God, and it seems to be no accident whatsoever that the agents of the state are called ministers.
Yeahbut, everyone knows that communists can't be christians <notices that the 'Shutterstock web site has 1,400+ images of Vladimir Putin in churches> Oops..
Every spring, we seed a slew of politically theatric "fanservice" bills, where conservatives submit creationism etc. bills just to be able to tell their constituents they did it, with no real hope of passing.
I was expecting this was one such. It. Is. Not.
The GOP in NH controls every elected branch of government - both legislatures, Governor, and AG. So this could very well make it in front of voters and if they approve it, there will likely be no pushback from the Governor or AG's office.
Very alarming. The only thing going for it - if this is a plus at all - is that that voter's guide lays it out pretty clearly. So maybe the voters reject it? Fingers crossed.
New Hampshire has a strongly Democratic southern tier…populated with affluent technology workers, ex-Bay Staters, and their families. It also has a Republican tradition of free thinking moderates. NH has elected Democrats to the Senate. I’m not at all convinced this bill would be popular with the voting public.
Maybe New Hampshire Rethuglikkkans should pay more attention to Article 6 (Clause 3) of the US Constitution. Not to mention Article XI of the Treaty with Tripoli.
They likely don't even KNOW about the Treaty of Tripoli and would probably dismiss it if they did know. They mean to bulldoze the Constitution and the laws of this country and establish their own little religious satrapy in what was once known as New Hampshire.
Again, I have to say it, they need to be STOPPED IN THEIR TRACKS.
They might want to learn about that Treaty. It was passed unanimously and WITHOUT dissent before it was signed into law by John Adams. It is as much the law of the land as the Constitution is.
Indeed. They think that they can shove the Overton Window to the right until it breaks. Getting the OW back where it belongs, just as with the other madnesses Trump and his cronies have foisted on us, will take far more time in correction than they took to attempt.
I worry that this nation will never be quite the same, for all the avarice and hunger for power of a few deluded men.
Even if public sentiment about legislation and rules moves left, you'll still have no USAID, no East Wing of the WH, and pretty soon, a Trump-Kennedy Center with big Trump busts and right-wing hateful quotes on gold walls instead of the current marble with aspirational pro-art inclusive Kennedy quotes.
Plus whatever other irreversible decisions Trump makes in the next few years. Ukraine a territory of Russia maybe, or Venezuela's violent corrupt dictatorship replaced with a pro-US violent corrupt dictatorship...until it's overturned, and Venezuela goes the way of Iran, hating the US for decades for our role in installing their last dictator.
At the Opera House in Rome, above the stage, there is a plaque commemorating the building of the Opera House. It mentions the mayor of Rome, King Vittorioemmanuele, and Benito Mussolini.
It’s been over 80 years, and that plaque has never been removed.
As a >60-year resident of the rural deep south, I'm honestly confused by one observation I've been making here recently...
I'm seeing far fewer confederate flags than I can remember EVER seeing in the deep south before now. Not just actual cloth flags on flagpoles, but stickers in truck windows, bumper stickers, t-shirts, etc.
And this is in a county that (seemingly) never accepted Biden's 2020 win as authentic. (In county offices, photos of the current president are always "officially" displayed, even Obama. But for 4 years, that spot on the wall was simply ignored...until recently. Not exactly a prime candidate for "wokeness", yet here we are.)
But since it's not strictly a one-to-one correlation, and Trump stickers (etc.) have been so many places over the past decade, it's hard to know which are new, filling an old spot on a "hate bumper".
My personal opinion is that MAGA might just have been getting tired of "pranking" America, especially considering their inexplicable levels of success. But now? Killing libs goes even beyond their fondest expectations of instructions from Trump of "owning the libs", and has possibly given them a strong new energy. (That really scares me, as an American.)
Are we seeing NEW Trump stuff in public displays? I don't think so, though I can't say just what that means. (For example, does it mean a recent MAGA convert? I'd have guessed that America had already maxed-out on racial hate and ignorance, but I could be wrong.)
On a personal level, my geographically nearest neighbor has had hate flags (actual flags!) in the front corner of his yard since 2015 or so. (Usually an American flag or an American/Confederate(!!!) combo of some sort and a confederate flag.) Big on "smurf support" (blue lives/police flags.)
But he once had about 20 hate flags in a circle in his backyard for a while, and that was...disturbing. Like a scene from "O Brother, Where Art Thou".
But now? Nothing indicating support for Trump. Not one thing. We're not "close" enough for me to ask, but I couldn't connect it to any specific Trump madness about the time of the 2024 election, when he changed from publicly supporting Trump.
Sorry I don't have better "intel" right now, but I keep my senses on Full-Alert at all times.
You may find my specific goals of minor interest. I like to present myself as proof that EVERYONE can do something, even if it's only something very small...
"Can wearing progressive messages EVERY DAY for >FIVE YEARS (so far) make a difference? I hope so…"
This is a group that hasn’t read a book since the left high school, and even when they were in high school didn’t do much reading except the bare minimum to pass the test!
Damn. They're not just saying the quiet part out loud in New Hampshire. They're SCREAMING it. We're going to set apart Christianity in the Granite State and more: we're going to do it in our public education system! A more blatant declaration of an intent to impose Christian theocracy I may never have heard.
My question now is: has word of this gotten out to the general public in New Hampshire? I would hope so, and equally hope that not just Jews and Muslims and atheists protest, but those Christians who recognize the utterly horrendous judgment used in creating this bill as well. The separation of State and Church in this country is damaged enough as it is. A bill like this becoming law would create a fissure in Jefferson's proposed wall that would be daunting to repair.
The Democrats, non-theocrats, non-facisti and decent people have to do more than simply reject this bill. A counter bill must be put in place which declares for freedom of religion and freedom from religion with no special rights or privileges accruing to religion.
Because if they don’t make a stand against this garbage, the garbage will make a stand on them.
It occurs to me that there needs to be some kind of special penalty for proposing something so utterly unconstitutional. There needs to be a serious cost associated with attempting to undo something that, while hardly perfect, has worked at least somewhat satisfactorily for two and a half centuries.
I don't know what that penalty is. I just know it needs to be in place and active and RIGHT FREAKING NOW.
I've always thought that any politician who willfully violates the Constitution they swore an oath to support and defend should be kicked to the curb and lose any/all benefits.
Now you're talking! A good beginning. How about loss of franchise, the right to VOTE? Extreme, maybe, but their actions threatened EVERYONE's right to vote!
You’re not wrong, but given that federal laws govern separation of church and state, a state law undermining it will most likely be doomed to failure, therefore frivolous.
" An article by Christian psychologist James Dobson caught the attention of millionaire financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He sent it to someone seeking advice about her relationship with her father. “Ask yourself why you are so mad at him,” Epstein texted in 2019, according to a document the DOJ released on Jan. 30. He included a link to an online column where the founder of Focus on the Family told someone to adjust expectations for a father who had caused his family great pain.
Epstein followed up a few minutes later with a text chiding the woman he was talking to for not being grateful enough to offer him sexual favors. “I suggest you learn to give,” he wrote late at night on May 20. “You say thx for advice but could have said … is there something i can do to express my appreciation?” Critics of Dobson, who died in 2025, say Epstein’s recently released texts about Dobson confirms concerns that the evangelical leader’s incredibly influential parenting advice enabled sexual abuse."
Jon Stewart is in the Epstein files – he did a short thing on his appearance recently. It was only a brief mention, otherwise I doubt if he would have brought it up. But it just goes to show how wide the net actually is doesn't it?
Epstein courted everyone who was successful, so he could try to blackmail them over his underage "party favors," he collected those girls for that, and personal gratification, because that is what a pimp does. Not everyone in the files took him up on it.
It wasn't even that – he was mentioned in passing as a possible narrator for some documentary or other. I guess it just shows there is so much dross in amongst the good stuff. And I suspect is going to take quite a long time to sort it out, although there will be a lot of enthusiasts going through it I imagine.
Yes, as I said not everyone he networked got involved. He was a philanthropist and cultivated many people on a professional level. But he was like a spider trying to collect victims for blackmail, whenever possible. He had every room in his house wired for video, the tapes exist, and the FBI knows who did and didn't partake.
NH trying extra hard these days to join the confederacy. As a born and raised New Englander, I can say it’s the only state in New England I haven’t visited. Rivers and forests in VT are just as nice (nicer).
The current wording is problematic as far as I am concerned. It sounds like something you'd see a king write not the constitution of free men.
"As morality and piety, rightly grounded on high principles, will give the best and greatest security to government, and will lay, in the hearts of men, the strongest obligations to due subjection;"
ETA: And of course without thinking of it, I repeated the sexism of the quote. Sorry, ladies, I should have said free people.
Every legislator who votes for this needs to be held personally liable for the court costs defending it. Our secular government CANNOT choose one religion over another and this is about as well-established in law as it could possibly be. The religious right claims to be in possession of the dead-certain truth, but for some reason they think they need government to backstop the ideas they're pushing.
The New Hampshire NSGOP is an ambitious lot. Trying to skip over all the slow creeping fascistic theocracy currently underway and demanding full on Republic of Gilead immediately.
Electing teachers? Isn't that what local school boards are for? Making non-evangelical Christians second class citizens, and non-Christians third, if they even allow citizenship? They are using 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘏𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘥'𝘴 𝘛𝘢𝘭𝘦 as an instruction manual. We've joked about it before, but this is fucking blatant.
But seriously, imagine what it would be like to elect all the schoolteachers. I mean, how many school districts are in the state? How many teachers in each school district? Will there be prerequisites for the teachers to even throw their hat in the ring? Or will we just get a fuck ton of Marjorie Taylor Greens, or George Santoses, or Matt Gaetzes, with no education, no experience, no background checks? Even if it is district by district, the sheer number of elections would be staggering. And then, what if something happens and the teacher needs to be removed? Does it take the state legislature to impeach them? Holy Fuck! This is a bad idea.
Okay, I get it that this is a “look at me, look how pious I am, look at how much I love Christians” piece of legislation with no hope of passing. But these types of bills try need to be shamed, they should be career ending for these legislators. If only the people who don’t fall for this type of bullshit would get off their dumb asses and vote in the elections that put these idiots in their positions and vote for folks who don’t do this type of grandstanding. If only folks paid the slightest attention to bit of attention to local elections. Nope they can only vote in the presidential and midterms (if there’s news about it). Also, let’s not forget that local races hardly get covered in the news, and folks not looking for these posturing moves rarely hear about this type of manipulation. We get short, generic statements from local races, even statewide races, that might have a dog whistle, or not, but no actual substance to indicate the agenda of the person running.
How many people would even take an interest in electing teachers? In the reasonably small suburb where I live, there must be may be 100 of them or more. In the wider area, easily more than a thousand. Who would be willing to pay money to run elections for them? Not me that's for sure. I suspect only the committed nutcases. Unfortunately if there are enough of them ...............
Oh and evangelicals have status over regular christians? That's what happens when you get so embedded and obsessive and maybe even embroidered, especially with the speaking in tongues thing. Messes up that little small thing in your head known as a brain and shrinks it down so it can be properly packaged and put away on a shelf and only taken out when service is required. Must act and behave with piety. On brother! Sounds like the Scarlet Letter. Who are these persons? But don't mind me. The full moon woke me up and this is what happens. Going back to bed now. 🛏️🌙
I'm from her neck of the woods. There is an 18 mile trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park named 'Old Settler's Trail', which passes through the remains of Partontown, where she was born and her grandparents lived until their deaths.
Dolly is one of those very rare humans who actually deserve beatification and sainthood. Books are a very small drop in the vast pool of grace that she fills.
Any religion that seeks to impose its will on all is a bad religion.
Once again, we see that the Christian faith is so allegedly wonderful it feels it has to use force to insure compliance.
Most religions work to increase their size and to impose what they believe is the Only Truth on their society. They think they are doing God's Will. The result is lots of Muslim states that seem to be the model for nationalist Christians.
Yes, they are delusional, iow, severely mentally ill.
Religions have not spread due to the quality of their merits, but by the the quantity of the violence that religions used!🤨
Power in numbers with force and more force applied 😞
There's a lot of truth in that statement of yours unfortunately from my perspective.
Like religion has done throughout history!
Or like ideologies have done throughout history such as Communism. True believers be they secular or religious represent a threat to anyone who does not share their views. They will impose their views if they get the chance.
The issue, David, is clearly not religion per se, but authoritarianism, fascism, Dominionism, and totalitarianism. That it puts on its prettiest Sunday frock and calls itself religion doesn’t really make the slightest bit of difference.
I can remember in graduate school more than 50 years ago where we were discussing ideologies like communism, and comparing the points between totalitarian religion and totalitarian political beliefs. And fundamentalist Christians are so fond of pointing out, the state becomes the new God, and it seems to be no accident whatsoever that the agents of the state are called ministers.
and it's a deflection instead of acknowledgment that the genocide cheerleader belongs to a dangerous cult.
I may be a Christian but that does not mean that I am part of the WCN movement.
The article is about theocracy and christians. You know, the genocidal cult you belong to.
No where in the article does it mention fucking communism.
Yeahbut, everyone knows that communists can't be christians <notices that the 'Shutterstock web site has 1,400+ images of Vladimir Putin in churches> Oops..
https://www.shutterstock.com/search/putin-church
Do you have an issue then with Bensnewlogin as well?
Poor old sick USA … the UNTIDY STATES of AMERICA.
… 🦘🦘🦘
Every spring, we seed a slew of politically theatric "fanservice" bills, where conservatives submit creationism etc. bills just to be able to tell their constituents they did it, with no real hope of passing.
I was expecting this was one such. It. Is. Not.
The GOP in NH controls every elected branch of government - both legislatures, Governor, and AG. So this could very well make it in front of voters and if they approve it, there will likely be no pushback from the Governor or AG's office.
Very alarming. The only thing going for it - if this is a plus at all - is that that voter's guide lays it out pretty clearly. So maybe the voters reject it? Fingers crossed.
New Hampshire has a strongly Democratic southern tier…populated with affluent technology workers, ex-Bay Staters, and their families. It also has a Republican tradition of free thinking moderates. NH has elected Democrats to the Senate. I’m not at all convinced this bill would be popular with the voting public.
Maybe New Hampshire Rethuglikkkans should pay more attention to Article 6 (Clause 3) of the US Constitution. Not to mention Article XI of the Treaty with Tripoli.
They want "no religious test" to mean "no asking which denomination of Christianity". They don't care about the Treaty of Tripoli.
They likely don't even KNOW about the Treaty of Tripoli and would probably dismiss it if they did know. They mean to bulldoze the Constitution and the laws of this country and establish their own little religious satrapy in what was once known as New Hampshire.
Again, I have to say it, they need to be STOPPED IN THEIR TRACKS.
They might want to learn about that Treaty. It was passed unanimously and WITHOUT dissent before it was signed into law by John Adams. It is as much the law of the land as the Constitution is.
Plus treaties are federal law. The Treaty of Tripoli applies to the entire USA.
There is more work than just stopping them. The farther they get before they are stopped is a new normal we have to drag back to decency.
Indeed. They think that they can shove the Overton Window to the right until it breaks. Getting the OW back where it belongs, just as with the other madnesses Trump and his cronies have foisted on us, will take far more time in correction than they took to attempt.
I worry that this nation will never be quite the same, for all the avarice and hunger for power of a few deluded men.
They want the Overton window so far to the right that the Nazis look like leftists.
Of course, nazis were socialists /s
It will never be the same.
Even if public sentiment about legislation and rules moves left, you'll still have no USAID, no East Wing of the WH, and pretty soon, a Trump-Kennedy Center with big Trump busts and right-wing hateful quotes on gold walls instead of the current marble with aspirational pro-art inclusive Kennedy quotes.
Plus whatever other irreversible decisions Trump makes in the next few years. Ukraine a territory of Russia maybe, or Venezuela's violent corrupt dictatorship replaced with a pro-US violent corrupt dictatorship...until it's overturned, and Venezuela goes the way of Iran, hating the US for decades for our role in installing their last dictator.
At the Opera House in Rome, above the stage, there is a plaque commemorating the building of the Opera House. It mentions the mayor of Rome, King Vittorioemmanuele, and Benito Mussolini.
It’s been over 80 years, and that plaque has never been removed.
This reminds me of the last century of the Roman Republic, before a strongman turned into an authoritarian empire!
Joe-King,
As a >60-year resident of the rural deep south, I'm honestly confused by one observation I've been making here recently...
I'm seeing far fewer confederate flags than I can remember EVER seeing in the deep south before now. Not just actual cloth flags on flagpoles, but stickers in truck windows, bumper stickers, t-shirts, etc.
And this is in a county that (seemingly) never accepted Biden's 2020 win as authentic. (In county offices, photos of the current president are always "officially" displayed, even Obama. But for 4 years, that spot on the wall was simply ignored...until recently. Not exactly a prime candidate for "wokeness", yet here we are.)
Are the confederate flags being replaced by Trump/MAGA stuff?
That's likely THE question to be asking.
But since it's not strictly a one-to-one correlation, and Trump stickers (etc.) have been so many places over the past decade, it's hard to know which are new, filling an old spot on a "hate bumper".
My personal opinion is that MAGA might just have been getting tired of "pranking" America, especially considering their inexplicable levels of success. But now? Killing libs goes even beyond their fondest expectations of instructions from Trump of "owning the libs", and has possibly given them a strong new energy. (That really scares me, as an American.)
Are we seeing NEW Trump stuff in public displays? I don't think so, though I can't say just what that means. (For example, does it mean a recent MAGA convert? I'd have guessed that America had already maxed-out on racial hate and ignorance, but I could be wrong.)
On a personal level, my geographically nearest neighbor has had hate flags (actual flags!) in the front corner of his yard since 2015 or so. (Usually an American flag or an American/Confederate(!!!) combo of some sort and a confederate flag.) Big on "smurf support" (blue lives/police flags.)
But he once had about 20 hate flags in a circle in his backyard for a while, and that was...disturbing. Like a scene from "O Brother, Where Art Thou".
But now? Nothing indicating support for Trump. Not one thing. We're not "close" enough for me to ask, but I couldn't connect it to any specific Trump madness about the time of the 2024 election, when he changed from publicly supporting Trump.
Sorry I don't have better "intel" right now, but I keep my senses on Full-Alert at all times.
This is interesting.
Could you please carry on with your observations and report back? Thank you.
I will, Claudia. Thank you.
You may find my specific goals of minor interest. I like to present myself as proof that EVERYONE can do something, even if it's only something very small...
"Can wearing progressive messages EVERY DAY for >FIVE YEARS (so far) make a difference? I hope so…"
https://medium.com/@foofaraw/many-more-people-will-die-because-of-trump-i-hope-i-wont-be-one-of-them-41b2f1493036
Yes, I find some of them have less than poor, reading comprehension.
This is a group that hasn’t read a book since the left high school, and even when they were in high school didn’t do much reading except the bare minimum to pass the test!
The Cliffe notes crowd.
I think they feel as though they can act like Trump and ignore ANY law or Constitution and do as they please ... until someone STOPS THEM.
Damn. They're not just saying the quiet part out loud in New Hampshire. They're SCREAMING it. We're going to set apart Christianity in the Granite State and more: we're going to do it in our public education system! A more blatant declaration of an intent to impose Christian theocracy I may never have heard.
My question now is: has word of this gotten out to the general public in New Hampshire? I would hope so, and equally hope that not just Jews and Muslims and atheists protest, but those Christians who recognize the utterly horrendous judgment used in creating this bill as well. The separation of State and Church in this country is damaged enough as it is. A bill like this becoming law would create a fissure in Jefferson's proposed wall that would be daunting to repair.
We cannot permit it.
The Democrats, non-theocrats, non-facisti and decent people have to do more than simply reject this bill. A counter bill must be put in place which declares for freedom of religion and freedom from religion with no special rights or privileges accruing to religion.
Because if they don’t make a stand against this garbage, the garbage will make a stand on them.
It occurs to me that there needs to be some kind of special penalty for proposing something so utterly unconstitutional. There needs to be a serious cost associated with attempting to undo something that, while hardly perfect, has worked at least somewhat satisfactorily for two and a half centuries.
I don't know what that penalty is. I just know it needs to be in place and active and RIGHT FREAKING NOW.
I've always thought that any politician who willfully violates the Constitution they swore an oath to support and defend should be kicked to the curb and lose any/all benefits.
Now you're talking! A good beginning. How about loss of franchise, the right to VOTE? Extreme, maybe, but their actions threatened EVERYONE's right to vote!
Extreme? Not at all. I think incarceration would fit the crime(s).
Appropriate.
I would vote for deportation to Russia or Iran. Russia if you want to place that’s lovely this time of year, and Iran if you want God everywhere.
Serial lawsuit filers can get sanctioned in court for filing frivolous lawsuits. Maybe the same should apply to frivolous legislation.
Not sure I would call this "frivolous." I'm tempted to call it: "treasonous!"
You’re not wrong, but given that federal laws govern separation of church and state, a state law undermining it will most likely be doomed to failure, therefore frivolous.
So true we win, and they just keep senselessly chipping away.
And they will chip and chip and chip and chip, which is why we need a definitive Separation of church and state>
Yes, an inviolable one!
O/T: Guess who's in the Epstein files now?
" An article by Christian psychologist James Dobson caught the attention of millionaire financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He sent it to someone seeking advice about her relationship with her father. “Ask yourself why you are so mad at him,” Epstein texted in 2019, according to a document the DOJ released on Jan. 30. He included a link to an online column where the founder of Focus on the Family told someone to adjust expectations for a father who had caused his family great pain.
Epstein followed up a few minutes later with a text chiding the woman he was talking to for not being grateful enough to offer him sexual favors. “I suggest you learn to give,” he wrote late at night on May 20. “You say thx for advice but could have said … is there something i can do to express my appreciation?” Critics of Dobson, who died in 2025, say Epstein’s recently released texts about Dobson confirms concerns that the evangelical leader’s incredibly influential parenting advice enabled sexual abuse."
URL: https://julieroys.com/jeffrey-epstein-recommended-reading-james-dobson/
Dobson was a total POS. I almost wish there was a hell for him to be roasting in.
Jon Stewart is in the Epstein files – he did a short thing on his appearance recently. It was only a brief mention, otherwise I doubt if he would have brought it up. But it just goes to show how wide the net actually is doesn't it?
Epstein courted everyone who was successful, so he could try to blackmail them over his underage "party favors," he collected those girls for that, and personal gratification, because that is what a pimp does. Not everyone in the files took him up on it.
It wasn't even that – he was mentioned in passing as a possible narrator for some documentary or other. I guess it just shows there is so much dross in amongst the good stuff. And I suspect is going to take quite a long time to sort it out, although there will be a lot of enthusiasts going through it I imagine.
Yes, as I said not everyone he networked got involved. He was a philanthropist and cultivated many people on a professional level. But he was like a spider trying to collect victims for blackmail, whenever possible. He had every room in his house wired for video, the tapes exist, and the FBI knows who did and didn't partake.
That's a no-brainer.
If you're not in the Epstein Files, you're a nobody.
NH trying extra hard these days to join the confederacy. As a born and raised New Englander, I can say it’s the only state in New England I haven’t visited. Rivers and forests in VT are just as nice (nicer).
Living in the NE, I drive through on my way to visit family in Maine regularly. Some beautiful areas but a backwards state.
Do you also insert “wicked” in front of most words? 😂
No, I'm from NYS.
I’m in NY now too. 24 years in.
Are you a fellow, from Maine, person? Never mind, you answered that below.
This isn't going to pass, but we should be concerned they're even trying.
The current wording is problematic as far as I am concerned. It sounds like something you'd see a king write not the constitution of free men.
"As morality and piety, rightly grounded on high principles, will give the best and greatest security to government, and will lay, in the hearts of men, the strongest obligations to due subjection;"
ETA: And of course without thinking of it, I repeated the sexism of the quote. Sorry, ladies, I should have said free people.
Repeating it as written was appropriate though.
Every legislator who votes for this needs to be held personally liable for the court costs defending it. Our secular government CANNOT choose one religion over another and this is about as well-established in law as it could possibly be. The religious right claims to be in possession of the dead-certain truth, but for some reason they think they need government to backstop the ideas they're pushing.
The New Hampshire NSGOP is an ambitious lot. Trying to skip over all the slow creeping fascistic theocracy currently underway and demanding full on Republic of Gilead immediately.
Electing teachers? Isn't that what local school boards are for? Making non-evangelical Christians second class citizens, and non-Christians third, if they even allow citizenship? They are using 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘏𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘥'𝘴 𝘛𝘢𝘭𝘦 as an instruction manual. We've joked about it before, but this is fucking blatant.
𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑒 𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑠 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑘 𝑜𝑢𝑡, 𝐼 ℎ𝑜𝑝𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑖𝑡 𝑐𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑎 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑎𝑙 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑑𝑜𝑚. 𝐼𝑡’𝑠 𝑎 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑙𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑖𝑠 𝑛𝑜 𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑟 𝑒𝑛𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑁𝑒𝑤 𝐻𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑟𝑒 𝑅𝑒𝑝𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑛𝑠; 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑠.
Me, too. Call out the bigots for their blatant anti-American bullshit.
"Electing teachers?"
Do they elect brain surgeons in the US? If not, then why not?
I know! That's a real WTF?
Don’t give the jesusfuckers any ideas, I sure they would do that if they could!😳
“And nothing herein shall be understood”
It’s all gobbledygook anyway.
But seriously, imagine what it would be like to elect all the schoolteachers. I mean, how many school districts are in the state? How many teachers in each school district? Will there be prerequisites for the teachers to even throw their hat in the ring? Or will we just get a fuck ton of Marjorie Taylor Greens, or George Santoses, or Matt Gaetzes, with no education, no experience, no background checks? Even if it is district by district, the sheer number of elections would be staggering. And then, what if something happens and the teacher needs to be removed? Does it take the state legislature to impeach them? Holy Fuck! This is a bad idea.
Okay, I get it that this is a “look at me, look how pious I am, look at how much I love Christians” piece of legislation with no hope of passing. But these types of bills try need to be shamed, they should be career ending for these legislators. If only the people who don’t fall for this type of bullshit would get off their dumb asses and vote in the elections that put these idiots in their positions and vote for folks who don’t do this type of grandstanding. If only folks paid the slightest attention to bit of attention to local elections. Nope they can only vote in the presidential and midterms (if there’s news about it). Also, let’s not forget that local races hardly get covered in the news, and folks not looking for these posturing moves rarely hear about this type of manipulation. We get short, generic statements from local races, even statewide races, that might have a dog whistle, or not, but no actual substance to indicate the agenda of the person running.
Anyway, my break is over and I ranted.
How many people would even take an interest in electing teachers? In the reasonably small suburb where I live, there must be may be 100 of them or more. In the wider area, easily more than a thousand. Who would be willing to pay money to run elections for them? Not me that's for sure. I suspect only the committed nutcases. Unfortunately if there are enough of them ...............
About 'electing teachers'. How else are those child rapists going to get access to victims? People are starting to catch on about their churches. /s
Oh and evangelicals have status over regular christians? That's what happens when you get so embedded and obsessive and maybe even embroidered, especially with the speaking in tongues thing. Messes up that little small thing in your head known as a brain and shrinks it down so it can be properly packaged and put away on a shelf and only taken out when service is required. Must act and behave with piety. On brother! Sounds like the Scarlet Letter. Who are these persons? But don't mind me. The full moon woke me up and this is what happens. Going back to bed now. 🛏️🌙
Their god is weak and puny if it needs humans to spread its 'message of love' by mandate and force.
Puny God gif! - Imgflip https://share.google/AHIGuDA29VYkDlSg1
That will never get old! 😁
Nor will the children of anti-VAXxers, but there you have it.
> "by the institution of the public worship of the Deity"
Baphomet? Flying Spaghetti Monster? Invisible Pink Unicorn?
Dolly Parton? She's a Christian. Just not the reichwing loony kind. Of course, that would automatically disqualify her in the eyes of the NH GQP.
She gives children books free! to read! Quelle horror!😉They can't like that at all.
I'm from her neck of the woods. There is an 18 mile trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park named 'Old Settler's Trail', which passes through the remains of Partontown, where she was born and her grandparents lived until their deaths.
Dolly is one of those very rare humans who actually deserve beatification and sainthood. Books are a very small drop in the vast pool of grace that she fills.
Who run Partontown?
They are talking about their Orange Deity.
Barf. 🤢
Or Superman, Storm, or my favourite Cthulhu (why settle for haft ass evil, go full out).
No thank you, Xtian nationalists.
What else have you got?
😉