How far back do they want this country?

It was without much surprise conservatives swept last week's midterm elections. The re-energized right, dressed in teabags and tri-corner hats, took back the house and several governorships. They even managed to pass a few wedge issues. In California, marijuana legalization was turned down. Arizona voted against health care. Arizona made affirmative action illegal. And, of course, there was Kansas who passed the right to bear arms. Ground-breaking stuff, Kansas, if only someone had thought of that 234 years ago and applied it on a federal level. For those not familiar with how a wedge issue works, I'll go over it briefly. You see, when a political party can't energize their voters about their candidate, or they feel they need a boost, they fight to get issues that traditionally rally their voters onto the ballot. It doesn't matter that the issue is often unprovoked, what matters is if you tell a conservative they have the chance to approve the 2nd Amendment, and on a state level, that's likely to get certain folks to squeeze their plus-sized pajama jeans into a voting booth and pull the lever and, while they're there, click an X next to the GOP candidate.

As discussed recently in this blog, Karl Rove did what he could in 2004 to get out the anti-gay vote and it worked. Conservative Christians pushed President Bush over the top and homophobia reigned
supreme. This election, four states ran a ballot measure on the right to hunt. To hunt! Who do you think they're appealing to there? Well, in Arizona 8 Republicans won house seats, Republican governor Jan Brewer won as did a Republican attorney general. Interestingly enough, the right to hunt did not pass there, but that doesn't mean it didn't help mobilize people, who wouldn't have otherwise bothered to vote, to pull the lever for Brewer. Arkansas has a new Republican senator and they passed the right to hunt. Of course Sen. Jim DeMint won in S. Carolina as did Tea Party-backed Nikki Haley. 89% of voters there voted for the right to hunt. Tennessee also has a new Republican governor and also passed an amendment protecting the right to hunt.

But while the right to hunt or bear arms seems kind of silly and pandering a more worrisome wedge issue passed and is causing a lot of legal trouble. In (sigh, say it with me now) Oklahoma a measure to ban Islamic or Sharia Law from being considered in a court of law. Now, I agree that Islamic Law should never be considered in a court of law in America or anywhere else. It's a ridiculous ancient, inhumane system practiced today largely by cruel, inhumane (in other words, Islamic) societies. Islamic Law has poisoned every nation it's touched and reversed progress 100% of the time. Never has a nation in the world been improved by a religion, in particular Islam, being introduced into government policy. Take a look at Sudan, where Islam perpetrates a genocide, or Iran where a burgeoning westernized nation was stamped out by Islamic Law, or Saudi Arabia, where religious police make sure people pray on time. It's sick and it's inhumane.

And so it's easy to see why people would come out and vote to block Sharia Law from being considered in America. But I have to suspect the motive, and so do you. It's not about a single court case in New Jersey that was almost instantly overturned, if it was, why would this issue be presented only in Oklahoma? No, this is another wedge issue. It must be the case that Islam polls particularly poorly in Oklahoma among likely Republican voters. Throwing this issue on the ballot is something designed to transform a likely Republican voter into a certain Republican voter. The best interest of the people of Oklahoma isn't at stake here. The illusion is that something was being voted on that needs to be voted on, just like the right to hunt. No one's threatening the right to hunt in Tennessee or bear arms in Kansas and no one's threatening to betray the First Amendment and consider Sharia Law in Oklahoma courts.

But, alas, the amendment passed and, although it's content is already covered in the 1st Amendment, it's passing, which targets a particular religion, also violates the 1st Amendment. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.  16 words that have been interpreted, explained and clarified for two hundred years, from the original authors to ministers to recent conservative presidents.  

Government, as President Reagan put it, must remain neutral on religion. To single out a single religion to "remain neutral on" is a betrayal of the 1st Amendment and I'm not the only one to recognize that. The Council on American-Islamic relations also noticed it and now they're filing a lawsuit, which Oklahoma, a conservative stronghold against wasteful government spending, is going to have to dig into tax dollars to defend.

There's a lot of talk in the Tea Party movement about reclaiming the country and getting back "Constitutional principals." The problem is that a lot of what they're talking about are revisionary interpretations of the Constitution. The Lee Atwater version. the Cleon Skousen version.

It seems to me like the assault on progressive ideas like affirmative action and civil rights and the superfluous reinstatement of 2nd Amendment, (and a biased rewriting of the 1st) are all evidence that the far right are living out their revisionary fantasies. History's not on their side so they're trying to change history, by starting over in some alternate universe where freedom of religion exists only for Christians, racism is just 'the breaks,' and everyone's bootstraps are just as accessible as the next guy's.

What's amazing is that we're talking about Oklahoma here. A state that came out so strongly in favor of inserting Christianity into government that they don't even need to be subtle about it. This is the state that last year fought to keep the Ten Commandments on public grounds. The same state that elected Sally Kern, the politician who blames homosexuals for the economic crises (via a curse from god!) in an official 'proclamation.' Oklahoma loves it's religion mixing with politics, so long as it's the right religion. I think there's a chance some in Oklahoma politics see they've exposed this loophole. If you bitch about state's rights enough, if you insist upon mixing your religion and your government enough, you can eventually make it happen. But now that they've noticed Muslims exist in America, they want to do what they can to deny Muslims from taking advantage of the system the way they have. They'll do anything, except of course, stop taking advantage of the system themselves. So they set up a wall of separation between Mosque and state.

If only someone had thought of that 234 years ago, and applied it across the board, at a federal level.