The USofA IS Not Now, And NEVER Has Been, A "Christian' Nation

Americans United presents yet ANOTHER recitation of the obvious facts, supported by historical documents and a legislative history (all of which the Bible-blatherers reject out of hand anyway.):

September 22, 2008
‘Christian Nation’ Nonsense: Americans Need Lessons In History And Civics

"55 percent of Americans told pollsters that “the U.S. Constitution establishes a Christian nation.”

(Which 'fact' does nothing except to reinforce my belief that a majority of "Americans"--say the 55% in question--are too fucking stupid to allowed to operate machinery unsupervised or reproduce at all. Ed.)

Bishop John England of Charleston has always been one of my favorite characters from American religious history.

England, head of the Catholic Diocese of South Carolina from 1820 until 1842, was a staunch advocate of church-state separation. He insisted that the U.S. Constitution gave government no authority whatsoever “to legislate upon religion or morals, directly or indirectly.”

Argued England, “If ninety-nine hundredths of the present population, were to become Catholics to-morrow, they would be morally criminal did they exclude the remaining hundredth portion from any civil, or political, or religious right; and under our Constitution the attempt would be usurpation, and therefore invalid.”

England insisted, “Congress has no power to nurse the Evangelist, nor to frown upon the Papist; it cannot prefer the Christian to the Jew; nor bestow one cent either to plant the Gospel in Monrovia, to build a synagogue at Grand Island, or a mosque in New York.”

I thought of Bishop England last week when I heard the results of the latest First Amendment Center survey on Americans’ understanding of their First Amendment rights.

In contrast to his enlightened views, 55 percent of Americans told pollsters that “the U.S. Constitution establishes a Christian nation.” Only 39 percent disagreed.

On a similar note, 63 percent of respondents thought “the nation’s founders intended the United States to be a Christian nation.” Only 32 disagreed.

These are absolutely appalling results. Are our public schools really doing that bad a job of teaching history and civics? Are Americans really that ignorant of our nation’s heritage of church-state separation and individual freedom?

Follow that link to read the rest. It will NOT improve your mood. In answer to the last question, the US Schools de-emphasized civics and US history beginnning in about 1972, when the "Crook" and his criminal cronies observed that a LOT of the students in the streets demonstrating against and demanding an end to the indiscriminate slaughter of brown people in Indo-China--in addition to the millions of civil-rights demonstrators of the previous decade--had been pretty well schooled in and were well-versed in civics, the rule of law, etc., and were using that knowledge to attack the Regime's criminal war.

Civics has not been a priority in USer schools since at LEAST 1980. So at least two generations of USer school kids are, in fact, abysmally--but intentionally--ill-informed on the structures and workings of the institutions and instruments of self-government.

Which is probably okay--at least with the Elitocrats--since those institutions and instruments have, themselves, been the targets of the relentless onslaught of fascistic practices wrought by EVERY SINGLE US Presidency since Nixon's to quell and suppress them, and are today comatose at best...

(H/t to M_A, on her OWL blog and Diane's WWL, too)...