{"id":3869,"date":"2005-03-31T10:58:52","date_gmt":"2005-03-31T15:58:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/3869.html"},"modified":"2005-03-31T10:58:52","modified_gmt":"2005-03-31T15:58:52","slug":"not-the-kind-of-thing-that-will-help-mississippis-image","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/not-the-kind-of-thing-that-will-help-mississippis-image\/","title":{"rendered":"Not the kind of thing that will help Mississippi’s image"},"content":{"rendered":"

Usually when conservatives want to use the power of the government to promote their religion, they make a half-hearted effort to case the effort in secular terms. With this in mind, it’s almost refreshing to see lawmakers in Mississippi drop the pretense<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mississippi’s Senate voted Tuesday to allow the Ten Commandments, the motto “In God We Trust” and excerpts from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount to be posted in all public buildings.<\/p>\n

A few senators argued against the bill, saying it crossed the boundary between church and state. They also said Mississippi has a diverse culture, and people who are not of the Christian faith, including Muslims, could be offended.<\/p>\n

But Sen. Gary Jackson, R-French Camp, who’s a Baptist minister, said the Decalogue is a historical document and the basis of laws for the United States.<\/p>\n

“The Quran is not a historical document as far as the United States of America goes,” Jackson said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The slap at Islam was apparently superfluous, but it helps make the motivation for the bill even more clear. The right-wing is so insecure about their faith, they need to get government to help promote their beliefs. When questioned, they respond by denigrating minority faiths. Typical.<\/p>\n

But this legislation on its face is rather astounding. Most conservatives would be more than satisfied with state support for “In God We Trust” and the Decalogue, but not these guys. They want all government buildings to feature excerpts from the Sermon on the Mount<\/em>. It’s as if someone sat down to think of the most unconstitutional state-sponsored religious display imaginable — and Republicans in Mississippi embraced it with two hands.<\/p>\n

“What we’re attempting to do here is proselytize our religion,” said [Sen. Johnnie Walls (D)], who’s Methodist. “We’re setting ourselves up for a lot of ridicule. Again, Mississippi will look less than progressive.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Usually when conservatives want to use the power of the government to promote their religion, they make a half-hearted effort to case the effort in secular terms. With this in mind, it’s almost refreshing to see lawmakers in Mississippi drop the pretense. Mississippi’s Senate voted Tuesday to allow the Ten Commandments, the motto “In God […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3869\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}