On April 5, 2022, Oklahoma legislators “approved a near-total ban on abortion.” The Republican governor “..has vowed to sign ‘every piece of pro-life legislation’ that comes to his desk.”
The Founding Fathers had four main fears: corruption, slavery, religion, and mobs. This kind of legislation is EXACTLY what they wanted to prevent by Amendment One’s “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..” Short and concise – and vulnerable to demagoguery.
What isn’t short or concise are the 1776-1800 state constitutions on religion. Edwin Gaustad’s “Faith of the Founders” lists them on pages 134-145, or look them up. Four prohibit a “religious test for office” [Article VI]; 8 prohibit an active minister from serving in their government; 10 had explicit language explaining in detail their opposition to people being forced to live by another’s religious beliefs; 11 HAD “established” churches – all gone by 1830.
My favorite is the 1776 North Carolina Constitution, Articles XXXIV:
“That there shall be no establishment of anyone religious church or denomination in this State, in preference to any other; neither shall any person, on any pretense whatsoever, be compelled to attend any place of worship contrary to his own faith or judgment, nor be obliged to pay, for the purchase of any glebe, or the building of any house of worship, or for the maintenance of any minister or ministry, contrary to what he believes right, or has voluntarily and personally engaged to perform; but all persons shall be at liberty t exercise their own mode of worship…”
NOT “ON ANY PRETENSE WHATSOEVER..” shall any American be forced to live their lives by the tenets and dogma of “pro-life” legislation – an attempt to impose “an established church” beliefs on people “at liberty to exercise their own mode of worship” – or none at all.
Equally troubling, Oklahoma, like many other Republican-run theocracies are enacting these “pro-life” religious beliefs into law “in anticipation of a pending Supreme Court decision in the Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.”
“From Florida to Idaho, GOP-led state legislatures have been operating as ifRoe had already been struck down.”
****** Think on that. The McConnell “assembly line” of “justice” is cranking up “in anticipation” of what the 6 Republican “Justices” – or are they the 6 “partisan hacks”???? about to do. For perspective, please check on “justice” as handed down in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union/Russian Federation. “In anticipation” of the expected ruling.
Please – tell me how any of the current Republican religious-based laws, on a variety of things, honor what the 1776 North Carolina Constitution prohibits – which is what “..no law respecting an establishment of religion..” means.
Along with that – how does one practice “..the free exercise thereof [of YOUR religious beliefs] – if a state or the McConnell/Roberts Court imposes the beliefs of religious zealots on YOU????????????
If Americans don’t control their own bodies, don’t control their own reproductive lives – YOU have NO rights. YOU belong to “the state.” The state – as in Soviet Union/Russian Federation, as in Nazi Germany, as in numerous “established churches” in 18th century Europe.
As in theocracy – like 1692 Salem witchcraft trials, 19 people executed. As in 1641 Massachusetts state law based on three books of the Christian Bible: Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy. The first capital offense was idolatry, the second witchcraft, the third was blasphemy.
Oklahoma has just put itself on a continuum with 1641 Massachusetts. How soon before people are stoned, burned at the stake, hung, pressed to death for idolatry, witchcraft, blasphemy??? How soon before mobs of self-righteous “pro-life” vigilantes hunt down “criminal” women??? How soon before the fictional “Handmaid’s Tale” becomes reality in “pro-life” Gilead/Amerika????? o
With Justice For All 