I hear those things are awfully loud.
This isn’t Trump & Co, but it’s such a perfect Leopard situation. Heads up, MAGAtaliban, you’re next on the menu:
From Heather Cox Richardson:
In September, as the Taliban enforced new rules on women in Afghanistan, they also began to target Afghan men. New laws mandated that men stop wearing western jeans, stop cutting their hair and beards in western ways, and stop looking at women other than their wives or female relatives. Religious morality officers are knocking on the doors of those who haven’t recently attended mosque to remind them they can be tried and sentenced for repeated nonattendance, and government employees are afraid they’ll be fired if they don’t grow their beards. According to Rick Noack of the Washington Post, such restrictions surprised men, who were accustomed to enjoying power in their society. Some have been wondering if they should have spoken up to defend the freedoms of their wives and daughters.
One man who had supported the Taliban said he now feels bullied. “We all are practicing Muslims and know what is mandatory or not. But it’s unacceptable to use force on us,” he said. Speaking on the condition of anonymity because he feared drawing the attention of the regime, another man from Kabul said: “If men had raised their voices, we might also be in a different situation now.”
I have a few relatives by marriage who are hardcore Christian fundamentalists. They often go on about how this is a Christian nation and should be run as such. Prayer in schools, the whole thing. They would absolutely mandate church attendance if they could.
One of the few lines of argument that really, really gets under their skin(s?) is “You know, the day after you get this great Christian Republic you wan, the Mormons, Catholics, Baptists, etc are going to start fighting over who is really in charge.”
They really don’t like that, I think because they know it’s true.
“First they came for…”
I usually annoy such people by pointing out that it’s not a Christian nation nor was it founded on “Christian principles”, as several of the founders said explicitly. It’s a secular nation founded on secular Enlightenment principles. They get really irked when I tell them what Jefferson said about belief in the divinity of Jesus.
There’s also the small matter of the First Amendment; the people demanding the supremacy of Christianity in America are often the same ones crowing about defending the Constitution. But then hypocrisy seems to be fundamental [sic] to that lot.
Just the parts of the Constitution that they like. You know, like with the Bible.
If it was founded as a Christian nation then someone needs to explain the clear contradiction between the First Amendment and the First Commandment.
It’s much harder to beat someone with the Bible if you open it first.
I’m still trying to get that to go viral, so please feel free to disseminate.
SCOTUS has already shown a willingness to morph the First Amendment to allow various religious encroachments. The “no religious test” clause will probably be harder for them to originalist/textualist themselves around.
They can simply disincorporate it; that is, go to the original interpretation that it applies only to the federal government and not the states themselves.
Just adopt a particular definition of “test”:
a procedure intended to establish the quality, performance, or reliability of something, especially before it is taken into widespread use
“We didn’t require him to be a good Christian! Just asking if they are Christian doesn’t “establish the quality, performance, or reliability” of their faith!”
Show 'em The Jefferson Bible. It’s the New Testament with all the God parts left out.
You can get a really neat photoreproduced page-by-page copy from the Smithsonian, in a binding that reproduces the one Jefferson had.
Why would it be? They can do just like they did when they anointed Trump king: make a ruling ignoring the constitution.
SNAP doesn’t cover alcohol which is Giuliani’s primary food group. So it won’t help much.
Done. Just said it to my wife.
One step at a time…
Not to mention Art. VI, cl. 3: “… no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
And even if SNAP did, I think Rudy would drink his monthly benefit on the first day before noon.
Rudy could probably use SNAP to get the ingredients for pruno, though.
I’m confident that Rudy will quickly learn the basics… You can trade $100 worth of SNAP food for $50 in booze.
Supreme Court rules against Mark Meadows moving case from state court to federal court. Glenn Kirschner