Republicans choose theocracy over democracy
The far-right Republican governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, has just signed a law requiring every public school classroom in his state to display a copy of the Ten Commandments.
The far-right Republican governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, has just signed a law requiring every public school classroom in his state to display a copy of the Ten Commandments.
“If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original law giver, which was Moses,” he said.
That’s rich, considering that Landry is a proud member of a political party that disdains the law.
The GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump, has been convicted of 34 felonies, and Republican officials have disparaged and berated law enforcement officials who defended the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Republican leaders have also lashed out at the FBI, the nation’s leading law enforcement agency, threatening to “defund” it.
Louisiana’s perverse Ten Commandments edict has nothing to do with the “rule of law” — or Moses, for that matter — and everything to do with the war that ultraconservative Christianists are waging against the United States Constitution. Though often referred to as “Christian nationalists,” these rightwing Bible-thumpers are averse to the teachings of Jesus Christ, who — quiet as it’s kept — stood up for the poor, defended the marginalized and urged the armed to put away their weapons.
Landry and his ilk are more correctly referred to as ultraconservative theocrats who would overthrow democracy in favor of a religious dictatorship. If they know the bloody history of Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, when kingdoms were roiled by religious wars, they have not learned anything from it. They care nothing for the Founding Fathers’ conscientious separation of church and state.
Consider, as another example, Mark Robinson, the GOP nominee for governor of North Carolina. In language that mimics Trump’s Islamophobia, Robinson has disparaged Muslims as “invaders.” In a Facebook post, he wrote, “(They) refuse to assimilate to our ways while demanding respect they have not earned.” Assimilate? As in convert to Christianity?
Robinson, by the way, engages in some of the most abusive rhetoric of any leading Republican — quite the accomplishment in a party whose leader refers to veterans as “losers” and “suckers,” and poorer nations as “s—-holes.”
His extremism is especially disappointing since he is Black and should be aware of the many ways that Black Americans have been disparaged and oppressed.
Yet, he continues. In a social media post, Robinson castigated the LGBTQ+ community as “filth”; he wrote in another post, “Homosexuality is STILL an abominable sin.” His antediluvian views don’t stop there. He has defended men who were accused of physical and sexual abuse of women, including Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and former pro football player Ray Rice.
Robinson has also said, “I absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn’t vote.”
That view is not out of step with the most extreme views on the Christianist right, where believers don’t accept the leadership of women — in the home, in the church, in the White House. While the Southern Baptist Convention recently rejected an amendment to its constitution that would have strictly enforced a ban on women pastors, the convention has already ousted several churches that dared to place women in pastoral positions.
Moreover, the theocrats have shown that they were not content to take away abortion rights.
While some conservatives certainly had sincere moral qualms about abortion, their Christianist allies have made it clear that they want to take women back to the 19th century.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has invited them to crusade against contraception, and they have begun to do so.
Furthermore, the Southern Baptists voted earlier this month to oppose in vitro fertilization, which has offered a lifeline to countless families desperate to conceive. After the unfortunate ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court, which declared that an embryo is a person, there are certain to be more such rulings that threaten IVF.
If there is any consolation here, it is this: These extremists have shown their desire for a rightwing theocracy before the presidential election, when a victory for Trump would place them in power. Americans who want to live in a democracy should understand the stakes.
Cynthia Tucker won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2007. She can be reached at cynthia@cynthiatucker.com.