In normal times, the idea of thinking one is not subject to the law, immune to the law, or exempt from the laws that apply to everyone else is something attributable to career criminals and organized crime bosses whose acts were of someone who thinks they are above the law. There are only two reasons a criminal would deliberately violate the law and it is they either do not recognize legal statutes as valid, or they follow a different set of laws despite they are contrary to the law of the land. In 21st Century America, the term above the law applies primarily to Christian fundamentalists and their Republican operatives who regularly flout not only the United States Constitution, but also the Supreme Court the Constitution clearly says is the arbiter of what is constitutional and what is not.In yet another, and most recent, case of Christian Republican paternalism regulating Americans’ personal lives, Louisiana Republicans passed an unconstitutional law to regulate sexual relations between gay and heterosexual couples based on the Christian religion. The Louisiana House of Representatives on Tuesday voted 67-27 to retain the state’s illegal and patently unconstitutional ban on “crimes again nature” such as sodomy and oral sex between gay and straight couples whether they are married or single. That is right; Christian Republicans actually criminalized oral sex between married heterosexual couples because they consider it a crime against nature. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, a Christian fanatic with presidential aspirations, supports crimes against nature laws, regardless of their unconstitutionality, and stated he would not sign a law revoking Louisiana’s 200-year old law regulating sex between consenting adults; his Christian cohorts in the state Republican House made sure Jindal would not have to sign a law revoking an unconstitutional bible law.
One fierce advocate for biblical edicts as the law of the land, Republican Representative Valarie Hodges, opposed revoking the crimes against nature law because she wants to “uphold morality” which is code for legislating Christian morality according to Louisiana’s biblical law. Hodges defended her vote to retain the unconstitutional sex acts ban because “yesterday was Passover and Friday is Good Friday.” Her reasoning is typical of Christian Republicans who oppose the U.S. Constitution and said, “Just because we decriminalize something doesn’t make it right. We’re here to uphold the law of what’s right and wrong,” according to Christian Republicans. As if to punctuate their firm belief the bible is the law of the land, yesterday Louisiana Republicans voted to make the Christian bible the official state book. Currently, seventeen states, primarily in America’s Christian stronghold (the South), still maintain biblical sex act bans on the books and they refuse to repeal them because they comport with the Christian bible they regard as the true law of the land. In Louisiana, law enforcement keeps arresting people based on biblical laws that have been ruled unconstitutional, but the practice is not confined to the South because Christian Republicans control state legislatures around the nation.
Last year an Idaho sheriff claimed that sodomy was “illegal” in that state despite the Supreme Court’s 10 year-old ruling striking down bans against sexual acts between consenting adults in the privacy of their bedrooms. The High Court ruled in 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas that “intimate consensual sexual conduct was part of the liberty protected by substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.” An increasing number of Republican Christians suggest revisiting the 14th Amendment for repeal because it protects too many Americans from Christian conservatives determined to legalize theocratic discrimination based on eliminating equal rights and due process protections. In 2009, about the same time Republicans met in private to plot their obstruction against President Obama’s economic recovery efforts, over 200 Christian leaders met to plot using the “exercise of religion” defense they claimed was specifically to undermine the validity of 14th Amendment because it grants equal rights to all Americans; something Republicans and Christian fanatics claim violates biblical law. The result of the five-year-old Manhattan Declaration has been various Republican state laws legalizing discrimination based on “religious liberty” and “right of conscience” that is the basis of the Hobby Lobby “exercise of religion” case before the Supreme Court; Hobby Lobby’s legal team were original signatories to the Manhattan Declaration.
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
Republican governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, is a firm believer that the bible is the law of the land and is notorious for using any means necessary to both shift taxpayer money to private Christian schools and to enforce biblical laws. For example, Jindal’s Christianity drives him to hate gays and oppose their right to marry that inspired him to warn Louisiana residents that allowing same-sex marriage in Louisiana was a slippery slope to “overturning Second Amendment rights.” It is unclear how gays having the same 14th Amendment equal rights Christians enjoy according to the Supreme Court ruling will overturn the 2nd Amendment in Louisiana, but it likely incited gun fanatics to rally behind Jindal’s anti-gay agenda if they were not already firmly in that camp.
Whatever the reasoning, it appears that Louisiana law enforcement who, like Jindal and Louisiana Republicans, swear to uphold the U.S. Constitution as part of their jobs cannot fathom that the Constitution, and not the Christian bible, is the law of the land. A Sheriff’s department spokesperson informed the Baton Rouge Advocate that “Whether the law (crimes against nature) is valid is something for the courts to determine, but the sheriff will enforce the laws that are enacted.” The Supreme Court already determined, ten years ago, that any “crimes against nature” laws banning consensual sex acts is unconstitutional. Still, in East Baton Rouge the Louisiana Sheriff’s department was caught arresting gay men for the crimes of “flirting, hooking up, and dating” due to Louisiana’s archaic and unconstitutional crimes against nature law. It has been reported that at least 12 men were arrested in a sting operation where police officers pretended to be gay, asked men out, and then arrested them for violating the state’s crimes against nature law. One wonders how long before Jindal orders Louisiana law enforcement officials to plant electronic eavesdropping devices in Louisiana citizens’ residences, especially married heterosexual couples, to catch them in the act of violating the biblical crimes against nature law having oral sex.
This is another in a long line of instances of the religious right paternalists enforcing biblical laws and one is seriously flummoxed by pundits claiming the religious right is in decline. There are still a great number of Americans who truly believe that religious Republicans are only punishing “those arrogant women” for expecting to make their own reproductive healthcare decisions, or “those gays” who think they have 14th Amendment rights to marry the person they love. The religious right is not in decline and they are casting an ever wider net to force women to stay in abusive relationships by banning divorce, and now they are targeting all couples to regulate their sexual acts in the privacy of their bedrooms, and not just in Louisiana.
Americans not versed in the Christian bible should know there are myriad god-edicts the religious right is prepared to impose on every American and their Christian Republican legislative arm are only too happy to regulate this country right into a Christian theocracy. Tragically they will succeed because too many Americans are convinced the religious right is in decline and they are only targeting gays and women. Likely they will have a rude awakening when the religious morality police break down their doors and arrest them for pondering divorce or, dog forbid, having oral sex. H/T David Badash
Audio engineer and instructor for SAE. Writes op/ed commentary supporting Secular Humanist causes, and exposing suppression of women, the poor, and minorities. An advocate for freedom of religion and particularly, freedom of NO religion.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn’t look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
