WV Republicans want their Constitution to say the Bible is a "foundational text"
A proposed amendment says the Bible is the "divinely inspired, inerrant foundational document for our society and government."
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West Virginia Republicans want to amend their State Constitution to acknowledge the Holy Bible deserves a “place of prominence and reverence” in all public institutions. And their method for justifying that horrible idea is all kinds of illegal.
House Joint Resolution 3020 (Update: This is now listed as HJR 31) is about as blatant a promotion of Christian Nationalism as you’ll ever see. It would introduce a new section to the State Constitution that reads as follows:
§9. Recognition of Holy Bible as Foundational Text.
The state of West Virginia recognizes the Holy Bible, complete with the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments, as the divinely inspired, inerrant foundational document for our society and government, an accurate historical record of human and natural history, and the utmost authority for human moral behavior. As such, the Holy Bible and its precepts shall be given a place of prominence and reverence in the public buildings, laws, policies, and schools of the state of West Virginia.
Besides the fact that this is a horrible idea to begin with, it’s all a flat-out lie.
How can the entire state recognize the Bible as perfect and foundation when only 64% of citizens are Christians and only 52% of them say the Bible is extremely or very important in their lives?
Beyond that, a bill that insists the Bible is “divinely inspired” and “inerrant” and an “accurate historical record of human and natural history,” and the “utmost authority for human moral behavior” requires the government to take a position on Christianity while simultaneously denigrating every other religious belief.
Even in West Virginia, that’s going to be a hard sell to judges. Just consider that there are different versions of the Bible and saying the Bible is “inerrant” assumes they’re all identical, which they’re definitely not. So by passing this bill, the state would also be taking a position on which form of Christianity is true.
It’s a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, and one that only creates more problems.
So why are they doing this? If this bill were to pass—and even in WV, that’s a big if—it would provide a foundation for the Republican Party’s other Christian Nationalist bills. They could use the Amendment to justify putting the Ten Commandments in public schools, or using taxpayer dollars to fund private Christian schools through vouchers, or rewriting history standards to promote a false Christianized version of our nation’s founding, etc. Right now, those kinds of bills keep getting struck down by courts, so Republican lawmakers think altering the Constitution would give them the leeway they need.
It has a long way to go before passing, though. In order to amend the Constitution, two thirds of each legislative chamber needs to support the bill and then it goes in front of voters. That’s all assuming there are no legal challenges to the law before then… which there absolutely would be.
The bill is sponsored by Delegates Henry Dillon, Elias Coop-Gonzalez, Lisa White, S. Chris Anders, Jim Butler, Margitta Mazzocchi, Tresa Howell, Thomas Clark, and Erica Moore. (They’re all Republicans, in case you had any doubts.) None of them have made any public statements about the bill just yet.
There’s also virtually no coverage of this bill yet. That’s somewhat expected, though, since it was just introduced on Thursday. The bill is currently in the hands of the House Judiciary committee, which will decide if it can move forward.
Declaring the Bible to be inerrant does not make the Bible inerrant, it merely demonstrates that these so-called Christians do not understand what the word inerrant means.
Which is probably why they want to declare the Bible to be inerrant. But then, they believe that faith is evidence, reason is irrational, tolerance is divisive, wisdom is foolishness, compassion is weakness, and fantasy is reality.
“accurate historical record of human and natural history,”
Bats are now birds.