Right-wing lawyers to Christian lawmakers: Use SCOTUS to "unwind" church/state separation
"With this court... I absolutely think you can unwind" separation of church and state, said a panelist for the National Association of Christian Lawmakers
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Earlier this month, at Liberty University, members of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers held their 2024 National Policy Conference, and it’s clear from their discussions that one of their main goals is to overturn church/state separation by taking advantage of the Supreme Court’s current right-wing extremism.
I recently mentioned how one panel at this gathering pushed the idea of putting chaplains in public schools while rejecting the idea that non-Christians—including Satanists and Muslims—could take advantage of their plans. Satanism is “not a religion,” said one ignorant panelist. Muslims couldn’t be “certified” as chaplains, said another. (He’s wrong.)
But a more disturbing conversation was also held that weekend involving how conservatives could take use the Supreme Court to undo their biggest losses over the past several decades.
The panel included Matt Krause (center, below), an attorney with the conservative legal group First Liberty. That group may be best known for representing Joe Kennedy, the arrogant Christian football coach who demanded the right to pray at midfield after games. He won his case only because conservative justices distorted the facts to justify the outcome they wanted.
Krause argued that if the Supreme Court could help them overturn prayer in public schools in that case, they ought to keep pushing to see how far the justices will go. For example, they should erect Ten Commandments monuments outside schools and courthouses (presumably without other monuments to provide a secular context). And they should push for Christian-only invocations at government meetings (instead of having an open forum that allows speakers of any faith or no religious faith). And they should also demand Christian prayers at school board meetings (which are currently not permitted).
Kyle Mantyla at Right Wing Watch summarized the conversation:
“Why not go on offense and why not assert our rights, especially with this opportunity we’ve been given that we have not had in half a century?” Krause said, revealing that he’s been working with state legislators “to put Ten Commandments back up in the schoolhouse” and to enact policies requiring schools to allow students to leave during the day to “get religious instruction.”
“We think it’s a unique opportunity,” Krause added. “We’d love to come alongside each and every one of you in your states, if you have something that you want to do—whether at the state level or in your districts, at the county level, or city level—to restore faith in America. We haven’t had this opportunity since the 1970s; we want to use it to its fullest advantage while we have that opportunity.”
The “opportunity” he’s referring to is the chance to revert back to a time when non-Christians were treated as second-class citizens and Christianity was treated as the government’s default faith. Conservative Christians have learned they can’t win in the marketplace of ideas when one of those ideas is “plurality,” so they fantasize about a time when competition didn’t exist.
Oregon State Rep. E. Werner Reschke, who recently said atheists and Muslims were unfit for public office because they don’t understand “the nature of God,” asked the panel if it was possible to go even bigger: Why not just bring forced Christian prayers back into public schools?
He wondered if the Supreme Court could overturn the 1963 Supreme Court ruling in Abington School District v. Schempp, which ended recitations of the Lord’s Prayer in public schools. Reschke called it a “watershed” ruling that ushered in a “secular society” and that “everything fell from there”… as if society began failing after Christian prayer in school became optional instead of mandatory.
Krause was all on board. So were the other panelists. One of them even suggested the best strategy to use: Push these kinds of bills in multiple states, all at once, in order to make it harder for church/state separation groups to fight them in the courts.
“I think you can see a light at the end of that tunnel,” Krause assured the audience. “You just got to get the cases up there. It’s got to be the right ones with the right fact patterns, but with this court—especially with the tests that they’re promulgating—I absolutely think you can unwind that at some point.”
“With the history and traditions test, all is possible at this point,” agreed fellow panelist Richard Mast of Liberty Counsel. “All can be questioned based on this current court and this makeup, so I encourage legislators where you have the majority, be aggressive. … This new court and a return to a history and traditions test calls everything bad into question.”
Mast then encouraged the state legislators present to launch a blitz of right-wing church-state legislation to overwhelm the opposition.
“I cannot express enough how important it is to have concerted efforts around the country where you’re all running similar bills so they cannot using the Alinsky tactic of isolate, polarize, and destroy one individual crazy senator or representative,” he said, “You’ve got our side of the issue [creating] a diffuse target that they cannot laser in on and zero in on and it causes them to have to expend resources in a broad swath where we can push things through in one or two states and then advance these majority and historic and traditional positions.”
What these men are suggesting, of course, isn’t just a reversal of long-standing precedent. It’s an unwinding of the basic principles of the Constitution. They want to undo the First Amendment in order to cater to their theocratic whims.
But their strategy isn’t coming out of nowhere. The conservatives on the Supreme Court have said that if something that promotes Christianity—like, say, a giant cross on public property—wasn’t challenged in the past, there can be a case made to defend it in the name of “tradition.” (That may be why Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry just signed a blatantly unconstitutional bill to force Ten Commandments displays in every public school classroom. Might as well get sued and appeal all the way to SCOTUS, where the most radical members could create reasons to justify the law.)
Several decades ago, and long before that, Christianity was the only game in town when it came to religion. There are many reasons for that, including a lack of diversity as well as scientific ignorance. But on that basis, these legislators and lawyers now say, they could push their religion back into public schools by appealing to the fact that it was once the only game in town. If we did it then, why not now? It’s what the Founders would have wanted!
They don’t give a damn about anyone who’s not a Christian. They would never accept a different religion or non-religion being shoved in their faces in a similar way, but they’re eager to use their power to force their faith onto everyone else.
That’s Christian Nationalism for you.
They know people aren’t choosing Christianity on their own and that organized religion becomes less popular every year. So instead of trying to make a case for faith, they’re trying to mandate it before others can fight back.
To what end? What will be better if they got their way? Nothing. Their dream solution would fix none of the problems that exist, many of which are exacerbated by these very people. They want more guns in society, they don’t care about climate change, they reject the scientific efficacy of vaccines, they take money out of public schools, etc. Their “solution” to damn near everything is to ignore the data and make everything worse.
And now they want to add more Jesus to the mix. As if that’s ever helped.
The same people who complain about rising antisemitism want nothing more than to force Jesus upon Jewish students. The same people who pretend to be defenders of the Constitution have no respect for religious freedom.
Unfortunately, thanks to apathetic voters who stay home on Election Day, amoral conservatives who always find ways to justify supporting anti-democratic Republicans, and self-important progressives who refuse to vote for Democrats who aren’t perfect enough, the Supreme Court has been handed over to conservatives hand-picked by the Federalist Society.
These Christian supremacists know that if they can just get their pet issues in front of their pet justices, the facts won’t matter. Neither will the First Amendment. The outcome is guaranteed because the majority of justices, like them, are more interested in elevating Christianity than respecting the foundations of our country.
Overturn separation of Church and State? Wtf is GOING ON. We are the United States of America plenty not perfect here but we DO NOT FORCE religious beliefs on to people who don't want to be religious or have other religious beliefs than we do. Not happening in Massachusetts that's for dm sure.
"Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?” -- Sandra Day O'Connor, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
The people who would break down the barriers between church and state always seem to be operating under the assumption it will be their tribe calling the shots for everyone else. They should be imagining the tribe they hate most having control over their lives. Neither this country nor the wider world faces a single problem that has religion as a solution. Religion has caused vastly more problems than it ever solved.