The campaign’s Arthur Randallson explained to American Family Association news network OneNewsNow, “We have taken a little bit of time to prepare an initiative that covers promoting Christianity, which is recognized as the principal religion of Mississippi from the founding of the state in 1817 to the present, and affirmed in the state constitution prayer acknowledging the Holy Bible.” The actual text of the amendment would read:

The State of Mississippi hereby acknowledges 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; accordingly, the Holy Bible is acknowledged as a foremost source of her founding principles, inspiration, and virtues; and, accordingly, prayer is acknowledged as a respected, meaningful, and valuable custom of her citizens. The acknowledgments hereby secured shall not be construed to transgress either the national or the state Constitution’s Bill of Rights. In other words, it doesn’t violate the First Amendment, which prohibits the establishment of a state religion, simply because it says that it wouldn’t.

We turn our eyes now to Mississippi, a state that has never really gotten very comfortable with this Western democracy nonsense and wonders aloud at whether the caliphate idea is a pretty good one, with a few adjustments to suit the local tastes. In Mississippi, a tea party group seeks to declare that Christianity is the state's officially recognized religion because that's just the way it is, the rest of you, and to put such a statement into the state constitution via ballot measure in the 2016 elections Oh, it also bars all government services from being rendered in any language other than English and designates a month in which the Confederate flag will be flown at the capitol and demands the return of "Colonel Reb" as the University of Mississippi's school mascot—again, though, if you see "flaming tea party racism and a longing for simpler times when we fought that war premised on the inherent inferiority of every non-white among us" as the motivating link between these various measures, you need to stop being divisive, you divider. But those are piffling concerns compared to the important thing, which is establishing a state-recognized religion (specifically, Jesus) in spite of that being one of the Primary Damn Things our founding document says the state cannot do.

It looks like the advocates will be attempting to wriggle out of that one by claiming, as is often the case, that the constitutional amendment "acknowledging" the state as "principally Christian" and built from the principles of "the Holy Bible" doesn't actually do anything, it's just there for shits and giggles and to honor the confederate heritage of not giving a damn what the Constitution of the United States actually says.

So that's interesting. I do wonder, though; why is it that the biggest threats to our Constitution so often come from people who carry copies in their back pocket?

