Neo-Confederates want Mississippi voters to proclaim Christianity as official religion

A former beauty pageant winner is leading an effort by Confederate sympathizers to designate Christianity the official religion in Mississippi and promote white, southern culture.

The Magnolia State Heritage Campaign is gathering signatures to put a ballot initiative before voters in November 2016 that would change the state constitution to promote Christianity, the English language, and Confederate symbols.

The activist group – which is promoted by 1986 Miss America Susan Akin, former Republican State Rep. Mark DuVall, and self-published novelist Julie Hawkins – must gather more than 107,000 signatures by October 2015 to place Initiative 46 on the ballot.

If they succeed, voters will decide whether to amend the state constitution to acknowledge “the fact of her identity as a principally Christian and quintessentially Southern state, in terms of the majority of her population, character, culture, history, and heritage, from 1817 to the present.”

The measure would also establish Christianity as the official state religion – which plainly violates the establishment clause in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

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Well this is a sure-fire way to motivate the base for an election 2 years future, manufacture a false controversy.  Remember what I touched on in my post about Frank Turek?  The false belief that laws passed via referendum are superior to ordinary laws, and are thus beyond judicial review.

It seems that the Magnolia State Heritage Campaign is essentially daring a judge to strike "Initiative 46" down so they can bait the vultures a la Bryan Fischer, who believes that the First Amendment only protects Christians.,-

I have contended for years that the First Amendment, as given by the Founders, provides religious liberty protections for Christianity only. Most attorney types, befuddled by years of untethered Supreme Court activism, think it covers any and all religions you can name.

and that a state would be well within its rights to establish a state church.

The First Amendment applies only to Congress, as its very first word makes plain. The states were allowed to regulate religious expression any way they chose. Since it’s never been amended, the First Amendment means today what it meant then, which means that if a state government wants to recognize Satanism or Islam, it can. If it doesn’t want to, it doesn’t have to.

Counter to what Fischer asserts, Jefferson wrote in regards to the debate in the Virginia General Assembly:

Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word "Jesus Christ," so that it should read, "a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination.

Rob Boston of Americans United has this to say:

OK, where to begin? For starters, this is a huge slap in the face to anyone living in Mississippi who is not Christian. The clear implication is that Christians who love the “Holy Bible” are the real, bona fide residents of the state. Everyone else is just some kind of lesser, second-class citizen who will be tolerated – maybe.

Secondly, this is the sort of embarrassing thing that keeps a poor state like Mississippi mired in the 19th century and does nothing to address the real issues facing the state. Really, folks, the country is changing. There is a lot of religious diversity out there. Many of us consider this a good thing and celebrate the fact that our Constitution established a framework for freedom of conscience that has sparked an amazing array of religions and philosophies. All of this talk about your Christian heritage, culture and traditions is just more pining for the bad old days when governments enforced theology. It’s kind of pathetic.

Finally, there is no way to proclaim – even in a quasi-official manner – an official state religion without running afoul of the U.S. Constitution. If the people of Mississippi are foolish enough to pass this monstrosity, there’s little doubt it would be immediately challenged in court. And the state will lose.

Neo-Confederates want Mississippi voters to proclaim Christianity as official religion