Rep. Mary Miller ― a Republican from Illinois who once praised Adolf Hitler ― wrote, edited and ultimately deleted a social media post decrying “a Muslim” speaking in Congress.
“It’s deeply troubling that a Muslim was allowed to lead prayer in the House of Representatives this morning. This should have never been allowed to happen,” she wrote Friday. “American was founded as a Christian nation, and I believe our government should reflect that truth. May God have mercy!”
The man leading the prayer was guest chaplain Giani Singh, a follower of the Sikh faith, not Islam. Miller’s Republican colleague Rep. Jeff Van Drew (N.J.) introduced him as such on Friday.
America is not a fucking Christian Nation
the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion
– Treaty of Tripoli, 1797
Sometimes I really wish the founding fathers were around to just say, “Yeah, we were all atheists when we did this America thing. It just wasn’t fashionable at the time. So this idea that American was founded on Christianity, is well, just bullshit”
I mean they were literally fleeing religious persecution. Why would they bake religion into what they were creating?
In fairness a lot of the people “fleeing religious persecution” were the nutcases who thought there wasn’t enough of it.
Not so much the founders, though.
Well they weren’t fleeing persecution at all. Most of them were born in the US, years after the Quakers had stopped being persecuted in England.
Mostly Christians, but in the same way my parents say they’re Christian. A churchless general belief in god and heaven. Deists, I think the proper word is.
I tend to call this type “nominal xtians”. They might not have thought too much about the topic, don’t really know anything at all about “the” bible, the doctrines of the denomination their parents/grandparents were part of, never go to church except maybe for weddings/funerals, etc…but also don’t consider themselves agnostics or atheists. Often they may say they are spiritual, but not religious.
While they were fleeing religious persecution, they were not atheists. The original Pilgrims were Christians who believed the church of England to be beyond redemption. All of the founding fathers were raised in some Christian belief system, and more or less practiced their respective branches of Christianity.
They were certainly more open-minded in accepting beliefs that deviated from their own, but also certainly not atheist.
The pilgrims weren’t really fleeing religious persecution. In the UK they faced the consequences of their religion’s actions after they took power during the interregum and were just the fucking worst, including banning Christmas. So they fled to the Netherlands where they were horrified to learn that religious freedom didn’t give them the right to force their religious beliefs on others. So they fled religious tolerance to America where they were able to be as awful as they wanted
Eh, some were about as close to atheist as the social norms of the time would really permit. If you look at Jefferson, he made his own version of “the” bible in which he excised all the superstition. In their day, the Inquisition was still going on (ended in 1834) and making your own version of “the” bible was exactly the kind of thing that would get you declared a “heretic”.
And then there is Thomas Paine…certainly being a Deist is something likely to get you in trouble with the crazy Inquisition types…as well as the Southern Baptists today…
That’s the very definition of irony.
they were literally fleeing religious persecution. Why would they bake religion into what they were creating?
Because everyone thinks their opinions are the right ones.
Someone persecuting you doesn’t mean you’ll go somewhere else and not persecute others who are not on your side.
My face when I found out the US has opening prayers in the house of government:
Do you not? And if so help, I’m stuck on a continent filled with nutjobs
Seperation of… What was it again? logic and reason?
Money and fools.
(We’re the fools, they get the money.)
Yeah, that’s the really fucked up part of all of this. Being a USian, I knew this kind of thing, though.
This Karen is just miffed that xtianity is not given maximum unwarranted special privileges: “oh, we’ll allow you people who have not opted in to our chosen lifestyle to exist (for now), but at every opportunity, we’ll rub your noses in it that we think our chosen lifestyle’s adherents are special little snowflakes that deserve praise for their lifestyle, and use the government to do it.”
Wow just the fact that she feels emboldened enough to dribble out this poison and post it online is telling.
Who’s doing anything about it? Nobody is marching on their representative’s homes and offices. No letter-campaigns, we can’t even be bothered to vote as a country without it turning into the apathy-olympics.
big oof
And here come all the nuts feeling brazen about open christian nationalism in a budding theocracy.
The thought path of a short-minded individual: Turban->Muslim.
I’m all for a minimum IQ to enter politics. This would probably disqualify 50% of Congress & Senate. And 100% of the cabinet.
I heard somewhere that one of the first hate crimes against Muslims following 9/11 was against a Sikh person…
IQ is a poor metric (for just about anything).
We do need to work on election reform so that our elected representatives are more representative. Getting more people to vote (turn out in the U.S. is fairly low), avoiding partizan gerrymandering, using something other than FPtP.
That notwithstanding, but being as stupid and uneducated as US politicians regularly appear, such a regulation would be helpful regardless of how they are elected.
I disagree that an IQ restriction would be an improvement. It would just be another tool used by authority to marginalize. Competency tests have been used as such in both the U.S. South and Nazi Germany.
Improving the electorate and having the output of the voting process reflect their will is the only way forward.
LOL, she should change her name to Karen.
JFC.
The US was founded as a secular state… No getting around that. There were only a few devout christians in the original group of founding fathers. Most were deist. They had the recent memory of the thirty years wars where catholic and protestant armies had rampaged back and forth across Europe stealing the peoples food. Raping and burning out anyone who wouldn’t convert. They did this to many who did convert. It was said at the time that they everyone kept two sets of bibles. They just hid one or the other depending on who had taken over at the time. That asshole regressive wouldn’t ever be willing to admit that. Because she is too stupid to learn it.
A secular nation shouldn’t be having in house prayers from any denomination.
if we want to keep it secular, we need to make christians fear for their lives.
I would take it one step further and say they (founding fathers) were possibly even atheists, or at the extreme, very agnostic theists with the idea that IF god does exist, he doesn’t care or bother about us (which of course is deism). It would have been very unpopular back then to say god doesn’t exist, so deism was a step in that direction. Just my theory.
In some cases sure. Hamilton was very religious. He was also tolerant of other. The main consensus among the founding fathers was tolerance of differing beliefs. Something these ignorant fools today never learnt or most probably ignore.
Today’s reactionaries hate the (actual) American project as much as Tories way back when did.
They hate it with every fiber of their being. All their rhetoric about “America first” and the flag-waving and the pearl-clutching over “the troops”…all performative bullshit. They hate liberal democracy, they hate the Constitution, they hate the rule of law, and they hate freedom.
Very true.
GOP keeps saying ‘this is a Christian nation’, but they don’t want understand separation of church and state.
There is no state religion. If you open a state body to prayer, then all prayer is allowed, not just the prayers you want.
Long live the satanic temple.
There should be no prayer in a secular institution
It’s a place for running a government not magical thinking
Oh they understand perfectly well. Hence why they’re trying to destroy the separation of church and state.
a few bullets would go a long way to keeping us on track. destroy all religion for the sake of humanity
Every president has been Christian.
It is a christian nation.
It shouldn’t be, but it is.
The current on is not.
Probably true, as long as we relax the No True Scotsman thing so very many white evangelicals engage in when it comes to who is a “real” xtian.
I think that if modern day politicians were to talk in terms like the Deists of the past, I am quite sure the Karens of the Southern Baptist type would call them “pagan” or “atheist” or at least heretics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_affiliations_of_presidents_of_the_United_States
Yes, all of them.
Lincoln was based, but still unfortunately Christian.
Yeah he went to church with Mary and the kids, believed in a higher power and talked about it often in his speeches he just disliked organized religion
She 100% doesn’t know that Muslims and Sikhs are different, and doesn’t care.
Terrified of all brown people, like half of America post 9/11
American was founded as a Christian nation
– Every American Christian Bigot
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof
– First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States
🤔
Don’t forget:
The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.
– John Adams
Honestly who could say what they meant by that, it’s such an open to interpretation remark.
Good thing we know exactly what they meant in the second amendment.
Yes but they’re going to go extinct if we cut off their arms.
Those poor bears
The thing you have to realize is that some words change meaning over time. If you check a dictionary from the time, you’ll find that back then “regulated” meant… oh, looks like it meant the exact same thing it means today. Huh, looks like it’s meant the same thing since it was taken from Latin. Fancy that.
“As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religious or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslim peoples], and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan [Muslim] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.” - Treaty of Tripoli, signed 1797.
You might also acquaint yourself with the actual religious beliefs of many founding fathers
I thought they were deists
Thomas Jefferson had his own personally edited version of the Bible that focused on the philosophies and stories in the Bible, and left out the supernatural mythology and fairy tales. There were parts of the religion he liked, but he was clearly uncomfortable with the actual religious parts of it.
And he actually WROTE the founding documents.
TJ was Deist, not Christian.
These dumbasses still have not figured out that the very first of the Ten Commandments and the Bill of Rights are in direct conflict, LOL. If they want a xtian nation, they should fuck off and move to the Vatican.
It literally says “Congress,” of which she is a member.
Every newly elected Congressional Rep and Senator should have to pass a difficult, graduate-level test on the history of the United States, and the Constitution, before being sworn into office. You can’t be sworn in until you pass the test. These people are tasked with leading our country. Knowing the basics is the least we can demand of them.
I’m with you in your frustration, but this only furthers a class of elites being eligible to govern. The test needs to be at a level that anyone going through compulsory education could pass. Eg 8th grade.
Additionally, I would do the test at candidate registration. There is no pass fail, but the electorate can decide if they’re qualified enough (as it’s the right of the electorate).
Maybe it doesn’t fix it fully but we can directly point to who is a moron, and who voted for said morons.
Valid suggestions. My suggestion was just a starting point, and yours offers some good adjustments. I worry the educational standards being different in all states may make it harder for those in some states to pass the test.
Besides, I don’t think we want some schlub off the street that barely knows an 8th grade level of history/civics running our country. I want people who take it seriously, and have sought further knowledge, education, and insight into the government. I don’t see anything wrong with experts managing the country. Part of the problem we have now is that we have evil morons whose entire political and historical education has come from the Conservative Propaganda Machine, and believe that Intolerance is a virtue.
I have always had a problem with the word “elites.” Somehow it has become a term of disparagement, often a dog whistle for Jews. Oxford dictionary defines it as:
a select group that is superior in terms of ability or qualities to the rest of a group or society.
Isn’t that who we want running our country?
And they won’t be paid until they pass either.
Why the FUCK would I Care about the Constitution or Founders?
-Pro Life People who Defend MASS CHILD KILLERS because of the Second Amendment!
Disrespecting the religion seems to be fine with them though.
This is indeed deeply troubling. Whoever voted for that racist piece of shit should be ashamed
this is the conversation they WANT to have.
What a cunt.
Ignorant cunt at that. Calling this a Christian nation is a joke to anyone who isn’t a fascist hoping to use religion as a bludgeon.
Poor Sikhs always catching strays…
Also, yo, I kind of hate this country.
“America was founded as a christian country”
You mean back when Christian people were so rabid that they thought of Catholics, the OG jesus folks, the way this lady sees any non-christian religion?
Maryland was created as the birthplace of religious freedom in this country specifically because catholics had nowhere else to go in the colonies without getting harassed. Ultimately, the concept of religious freedom would be elevated to a higher place of importance than christian snobbery by the time America was forming a country. Religious freedom was part of escaping the thumb of the King of England and other monarchs.
So, on the one hand, Miller is truly going old school by being a bigoted fuckhead. But on the other, she seems to have no idea that “America” would not exist if people hadnt been willing to tell the bigoted majority of protestants to shut the fuck up, and force them to live and let live
Well you see, the thing about conservatives is that they are fucking stupid.
And they celebrate their ignorance…
Trump loves the poorly educated, he said so himself. And they want daddy trump to love them.
America is fucked
That’s what he says to his reflection in the mirror every morning.
Well you see, the thing about conservatives is that they are fucking
stupidself-serving liars.FTFY
This bitch knows damn well America isn’t a “Christian nation,” but she’ll shout it from the rooftops if she thinks she can get away with it in order to advance her hateful, bigoted agenda.
Do. Not. Give. Her. Any. Benefit. Of. The. Doubt.
Well you see, the thing about conservatives is that they are fucking
stupid self-serving liarsevil.Fixed it for you. Some of the old school Republicans are that, true. But, this new Republican party adopted their sinister mindset because “god said so”. While a few of them are motivated by greed, this shit-fest is motivated by legitimate belief. Incidentally, this is the same minset that motivated the crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, 9/11, and ISIS. Its a fundamentalist mindset where they can jusify evil in god’s name.
This bitch knows damn well America isn’t a “Christian nation,”
Maybe, or maybe she actually believes the lie. Or, maybe, she thinks it her mission to turn the United States into the holy land (ISIS thought the same thing about the middle east, and probably the world).
she’ll shout it from the rooftops if she thinks she can get away with it in order to advance her hateful, bigoted agenda.
Yep. She’s a true believer.
Counterpoint: none of the beliefs you mentioned, from the Crusades to the Inquisition, were ever “legitimate.” Evil is never legitimate, by definition.
The older Republicans of Limbaugh and Raegan?
Before that, who opposed civil rights?
The ones before that, who refused to hang the confederates after the war?
Never has the conservative in this country been not-evil, the moderate core is unable to give a fuck Amir anything but their own American dreams.
The older Republicans included guys Theodore Roosevelt or Eisenhower, the ones who wanted a small government that leaves you alone. They seem to have died off after Regan.
People of the land… you know… morons
Why is the common clay so common?
It’s deeply troubling that a Muslim was allowed to lead prayer in the House of Representatives this morning. This should have never been allowed to happen
I believe our government should reflect that truth.
She’s right: leading prayer in Congress at all should never be allowed. Government should reflect the truth of a secular government.
Yes. Government should be led by law not theology.
I’d say that you are spot on and people in the West who want to believe in strange middle east cults can do so quietly at home and not bother anyone with their hokey faith. That goes for Muslims, Jews, Christians and the rest of them.
