The idea of nationalism is a person’s belief or ideology that involves identifying with and becoming attached to one’s home country, or simply put it is national identity. Although related, patriotism is often contrasted with national identity or nationalism in that it involves conditioning and personal behaviors that support one’s home nation regardless that nation’s policies, actions, and decisions. In this country, there is one segment of the population that is neither nationalistic or patriotic because they despise America, its laws, and its founding document and law of the land.
Over the past six-and-a-half years, it has become glaringly apparent that there is a segment of the population that deserves to hear that Republican mantra that if they do not love America then they should vacate the country. Of course, Republicans loyal to anti-American billionaires like the Koch brothers and corporations have certainly revealed that there is nothing about America they love or they would not crusade tirelessly to destroy the government. However, there is another conservative group, also Republicans, that have demonstrated their abject loathing of America and it is time for unpatriotic, un-American, Constitution-hating religious Republicans to get out America and stay out.
Evangelical Republicans hate America with religious passion because the Founding Fathers and Constitution’s Framers did not create a Christian theocracy governed by biblical dogmata. In fact, the religious right has indicated in thousands of ways that not only do they hate America, they hate the Constitution even more in great part due to its guarantee of equal, civil, and due process rights for all Americans. Now it appears that the American flag is under attack from evangelicals. No matter one’s political affiliation, there is nothing that elicits greater outrage from Republicans, and most Americans for that matter, than disrespecting the American flag.
One form of disrespecting the American flag, and violating 4 U.S. § 7, is flying a flag, any flag, above the American flag like a Baptist preacher did in Cleveland County North Carolina. The evangelical bigot, Pastor Rit Varriale, was sending an evangelical message that his kind are very, very angry that the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that the Constitution’s equal and civil rights guarantees apply to all Americans. To make his point, and reveal his hatred of America, Varriale raised a “Christian” flag above the American flag to show his blatant disrespect for the Stars and Stripes, America, the Constitution, and the rule of law.
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In a rant on his website the Baptist bigot railed against LGBT Americans, the Constitution, the Supreme Court and America, the “home of the cowards” and called on Christians to “Stand up to the courts! The bravest thing Christians can do today is stand up to the Supreme Court of the United States and say, ‘No!‘” As an aside, the Christian bible mandates that good Christians “obey the government authorities,” but since neo-Christians hate America there is no reason to expect them to acknowledge the government’s, or Constitution’s, authority and it is why they have to leave, form their own theocracy; there are plenty in the Middle East.
The North Carolina preacher is not alone in hating a non-theocratic America. In Louisiana a state Supreme Court Justice claimed in a ruling that he is not obligated to follow the United States Supreme Court’s decision founded on the Founding Fathers’ intent that the U.S. Constitution is the law of the land. The justice, Jefferson D. Hughes, III, wrote that he cannot, and will not, follow the Constitution and inferred that LGBT people are child molesters in a case involving an adoption he said “is a most troubling prospect” because it was an “adoption by same sex partners of a young child of the same sex” even though that is not the case.
Republican governors have displayed their disdain for America and its Constitution by labeling the High Court’s ruling “judicial tyranny” and the Obergefell v. Hodges decision incited Kansas Governor Sam Brownback to issue an emergency executive order preemptively protecting evangelicals who are intent on violating the Constitution and Supreme Court ruling. Part of Brownback’s executive order was all for show, and likely to distract attention from his catastrophic economic actions, but it also sets up Kansas for myriad lawsuits and court battles based on the bible as the law of the land; lawsuits and court battles evangelical Brownback will never win. What religious right Republicans like Brownback, Scott Walker, Piyush Jindal, and Texas AG Ken Paxton reveal is not their Christian bona fides, but their sheer hatred of America that they are unable to transform into a Christian theocracy. Obviously, since they do not love America, it is time for the lot of them to leave it.
This un-American, and pro-theocracy, movement is not reserved to evangelical clergy and Republican governors, legislators, and presidential candidates. In Decatur County, Tennessee, the entire county clerk’s office resigned en masse to protest the U.S. Constitution as the law of the land “for the glory of god.” The elected county clerk, and staff, said the Constitution is wrong “because it goes against the bible and everything god intended it to be.” But the Christian bible is not the law of the land, the United States Constitution is; “exactly as the Founding Fathers intended it to be.”
The religious right and their “onward Christian soldier” mentality has been anti-America and anti-Constitution since Ronald Reagan opened the theocratic floodgates and gave them keys to govern by theocracy. The level of rage in the evangelical movement is borne of having a high measure of success in inserting their bastardized version of Christianity into government without opposition, and with tax exemption. It is telling that when the Supreme Court gave evangelical employers the right to control women’s reproductive rights, the religious right cheered wildly. When the same Papal-5 on the High Court deconstructed the religious clauses of the 1st Amendment and allowed sectarian (Christian) prayers at government meetings, the evangelical right were ecstatic.
However, when the High Court ruled that all Americans were guaranteed equal, civil, and due process rights in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, the anti-America and anti-Constitution hatred erupted as expected. Why? Because the Constitution is the law of the land and the Court ruling affirmed that, at least for now, America is not a Christian theocracy and as Founding Father John Adams stated, it is not in any way a Christian nation.
During the 1960s when millions of Americans protested against the Viet Nam War, and seeing their sons and daughters, brothers and fathers, sent to die, conservatives and Republicans adopted the mantra, “America, love it or leave it.” Nearly forty years later when Americans protested another senseless war of convenience in Iraq because their loved ones were being sent to die, Republicans and conservatives accused them of “not supporting the troops, supporting the terrorists, being unpatriotic,” and resurrected the sixties’ mantra, “America, love it or leave it.”
Now because the nation’s highest Court confirmed that the United States Constitution is the law of the land, and applies equally to all Americans, religious Republicans and evangelical bigots have shown they hate everything about America. It is time, and long overdue, for all Americans that love the American flag and everything it stands for, and the U.S. Constitution as the law of the land to tell religious Republicans and evangelical maniacs that this is “America; love it or leave it.” For many, many Americans, the idea of evicting evangelicals and religious Republicans with their false “Christian” flag from a country they hate with religious passion is not a silly mantra; it is a very serious demand.
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.
