Rage-o-Meter: The Faith in our Government Edition

You may have missed it, but a couple of North Carolina state legislators just blew their noses on the First Amendment, wadded it up and threw the nasty ball of mucous-covered parchment right in the Supreme Court's face. The aforementioned snot-bombing took the form of HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION DRHJR10194-MM-54 (03/19), a neat little bill that lays the ground work for states and municipalities to start establishing official religions. There's quite a lot here to shake your faith in humanity.

First off, according to the authors of this bill, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights say that Congress can't establish an official religion, but nowhere does it say that states can't do it. It's "separation of church and state," not "separation of church and states." Suck it, Jefferson. Think about that little oversight while you burn in Deist Hell.

The Devil is in the details.

That leaves the floodgates wide open for states, cities, towns, municipalities, and city-employed dog catchers to establish official religions in their particular domains.

We salute you, our half-inflated dog lord!

And if ever there's a group of people you want establishing an official religion, it's state and local elected officials. They can't get the pothole on your street filled in, but they'll get the mysteries of the universe sorted out for you. Whether you like it or not. And you better hope that you like it, because it's not like you can go crying to the Supreme Court about it, because as you can see from Section 2 of the bill:

"The North Carolina General Assembly does not recognize federal court rulings which prohibit and otherwise regulate the State of North Carolina, its public schools, or any political subdivisions of the State from making laws respecting an establishment of religion."

Nanny, nanny, boo-boo, SCOTUS. We don't like the way you rule, so your rulings don't count. Sure, you have the word "Supreme" in your name, and the Constitution expressly says that you make rulings as to how the Constitution is interpreted, which is all fine and good, but we don't like your rulings. We don't agree with how you've applied the Establishment Clause, so we're going to ignore it like it's climate change science or Detroit.

In essence, the authors of the bill are saying they approve of the parts of the Constitution that say states can do whatever they want, but reject the part that says the Supreme Court has the final word on how the Constitution gets interpreted and what is considered legal in the country. It's like saying you enjoyed the original three Star Wars movies but you reject all the prequels. You can't just pretend that Jar-Jar Binks never existed, people. He's as real as Han Solo or Yoda, which is actually to say that he's not real at all. But the point still stands.

If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine. But I'll still be unconstitutional.

A bigger issue, however, is that once you've made it possible for a religion to be made your official religion, you've made it possible for any religion to be made your official religion. It's a literal Pandora's Box, in that a city council could decide to turn their city back to the Hellenic mysticism and mythology of ancient Greece. Or perhaps you'd like to get a little Odin in your life?

And then what happens when people in one county decide that the people in the next county over are a bunch of bloodthirsty heathens and they don't truck with that kind of nonsense? How about a little holy war? Maybe some religious persecution for the people in your community who don't get on board with the one-true-whatever-you-decide? And if they don't like it, they can go off and form their own little namby-pamby country without any state-sponsored religion. And maybe whoever writes up their Constitution won't do a half-assed job like Jefferson. Of course, North Carolina is not going to erupt into some sort of Afghanistan-like civil war over religion. Probably. No, this is all meant to be taken metaphorically. And you know how well religious fundamentalists deal with metaphors.

Good luck, North Carolina. We'll be praying for you. Just as soon as you decide who those prayers should be directed to.