Fake Christians Tear Up the Constitution in Chesterfield County, Virginia

The American Civil Liberties Union reports some very troubling – if predictable – news from the First Amendment Front. While the Cuban anarchist Ted Cruz, who knows something about violating the First Amendment, is claiming that Democrats will repeal the First Amendment, he and his Republican allies are busy tearing it up. Ted Cruz told his fellow traitors Thursday, “When you think it can’t get any worse, it does,” and he was 100 percent correct.

Not because, as he claims, “This year, I’m sorry to tell you, the United States Senate is going to be voting on a constitutional amendment to repeal the First Amendment.”

But because, as the ACLU is reporting, in a move certain to be followed by other red counties across the country,

The Chesterfield County, Va., Board of Supervisors may not permit only “ordained religious leaders of monotheistic religions” to offer prayers before board meetings, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia say.

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A Wiccan had asked to deliver an invocation and was denied, on the grounds that Wicca is “neo-pagan and invokes polytheistic, pre-Christian deities,” and therefore it does not fall within “the Judeo-Christian tradition.”

Never mind that Thomas Jefferson said, “But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” Or that the Constitution bans religious tests, and that nowhere in that Constitution are worshipers of pre-Christian deities banned from participation in American democracy.

According to the ACLU,

Chesterfield’s prayer practice was approved in 2005 by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which in Simpson v. Chesterfield County upheld the board’s policy of opening meetings with an invocation given by invited local clergy whose names are drawn from an official county list.

The Supreme Court’s ruling in The Town of Greece v. Galloway permits sectarian prayer gives some fake Christians the idea that only Christian prayer is allowed and the ACLU wishes to point out “that is a misinterpretation of what the high court actually said.”

To judge from their actions, it is entirely reasonable to conclude that Republicans like Ted Cruz already consider the First Amendment to be null and void. It has not been repealed; they just intend to ignore it.

And don’t think it’s just Pagans who are being persecuted here: other monotheists, like Sikhs, are as well. As the ACLU informs us,

[T]he county’s list of religious organizations invited to deliver invocations excludes the Chesterfield County Sikh congregation Richmond Gurdwara, even though, according to the group’s website, Sikhs practice “strict monotheism.”

Because, you know, they’re not Christians and therefore the First Amendment does not apply according to the popular Religious Right meme that the amendment that bans establishment of state-sponsored religion establishes Christianity as state-sponsored religion.

Don’t ask me how this works. They believe Noah had dinosaurs after all and the world is 6,000 years old. Mark Twain, as he so often was, had this one right. Higher thinking – indeed, cognition of any kind – seems beyond their reach. Nothing is allowed to get in the way of their all consuming hate for America and for its very secular Constitution.

Not to insult monkeys. If the Republicans were bonobos, they would at least not be killing people. And they would enjoy sex, which, believe me, would make all of us a lot happier.

Fortunately, the Constitution and the First Amendment still have their defenders. In this case, the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the two have sent a letter to the board asking for a response with 14 days, pointing out that “all faiths must have an opportunity to offer pre-meeting prayers in order for the board’s policy to comply with the First Amendment” and that the board’s “requirement that prayer-givers be ‘ordained’ is similarly problematic, as some religions do not require their clergy to be ordained, and others do not have clergy at all.”

If Republicans get their way, there will be no need for anybody to repeal the First Amendment, because it will have already been destroyed by Ted Cruz and his friends.

It is understandable that foreign powers might wish to strip Americans of their constitutional rights. But Americans must ask themselves why Republicans are so determined to take away their freedoms. The answer, I promise you, won’t be much to their liking, because it will have nothing to do with liberty, and everything to do with slavery.

Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.