Originally published at: Tom the Dancing Bug: Mike Johnson's Adventures with the Meaning of Words | Boing Boing
…
7 Likes
He’s put a genuine Newspeak / Double speak version on words.
8 Likes
Is he sure that he himself is Mike Johnson? I mean, since no one knows what gender identity is, how can he really know?
8 Likes
To be fair, the proper and intended interpretation of the first amendment on its own is that the selection of which Christian denomination ought to be established is a question left to the individual states. Getting to the modern interpretation is a matter of incorporation, which wasn’t a thing until after the 14th amendment. So… !Comic-Mike Johnson is wrong, but this isn’t the reason he’s wrong.
Also, I think it would be more interesting if he’d gone after the Parable of the Talents, which if you squint at it, you can pretend it means, “Everything you have will be taken by the powerful and given to those who already have more, and this is right and just.”
1 Like
10 Likes
This Jesus Guy looks like someone else…
2 Likes
No, the meaning is right there, and the founders wrote extensively about it. They were definitely worried about which denomination of Christianity would be adopted as a state religion (you got that part right) but their solution was to make sure no denomination of any religion became the established state religion (which you seem to have missed).
Thus the Establishment Clause. The United States is forbidden by the Constitution from establishing a preferred or official religion and making any laws that favor any religion over another. Benjamin Franklin was a deist, FFS!
11 Likes
Citation needed for that interpretation. It is true that the First Amendment did not initially apply to the individual states, but most individual states’ Constitutions contained similar language. The framers absolutely did NOT want a state established religion, either at the federal or state level. The English Civil Wars were history these men had studied and informed a lot of what they plugged into our Constitution. They wanted to keep religion and government completely separated.
10 Likes
Also, I think people should also remember the larger historical context here, that many people in the American colonies had fled religious persecution and that framers would have a working understanding of the religious wars that had plagued Europe for the past few hundred years prior to the writing of the constitution. Why would they be interested in bringing that conflict into the founding of the country? They would have been aware that establishing a national religion would have cause conflict pretty quickly… because the religious make up of the new country was already pretty diverse.
Also… jinx, @danimagoo…
11 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
