While North Carolina has a Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, the Lieutenant Governor is a Republican, Mark Robinson. He won his election last year with 52% of the votes, but he speaks as if he won by a landslide.
Case in point: At a “Salt & Light Conference” over the weekend, he expressed his desire for a Christian theocracy in no uncertain terms, urging anyone who disagreed with him to get out of the country.
You can’t continue to stand where God puts you without the God that puts you there. And so, we’re going to continue to mention him. As for this not being a Christian nation, yes, it is! If you don’t like it, I’ll buy your plane, train, or automobile ticket right up out of here.
“As long as there is a remnant of his people in this place that continue to pray to him and for his wisdom, this will always be a Christian nation. It was established by him. When the founders said those words, when they wrote them down and declared them to the world and told them to a king that, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed” — by who? Their creator. Not the Congress, not the Senate, not the king, but by their creator — ”with certain inalienable rights,” God Almighty heard that and said, “There’s a nation I can get behind.” So, this is still a Christian nation, and we still give him thanks because he is still worthy and always will be.”
It’s one thing to say that America is heavily influenced by Christian culture, though even that wouldn’t be accurate. Still, the vast majority of history scholars would tell you the Founding Fathers didn’t think of this country as “Christian” in the same way modern-day Republicans do. Robinson seems to be taking his talking points from pseudo-historian David Barton instead of people who actually know what they’re talking about.
Even if he were right about our history, what kind of “Christian nation” has some of the highest levels of poverty for a developed country, regularly turns away refugees, and refuses to acknowledge the systemic racism embedded in many social and economic policies? In that vein, calling America a “Christian nation” is an embarrassment.
But Robinson’s speech didn’t end there. He also blamed school shootings on godlessness:
I’m tired of turning on my TV after a school shooting and watching folks come together on school grounds, where they done told me I can’t pray, I can’t bring my Bible, can’t mention my God, can’t say nothing about Jesus Christ, but as soon as there’s a school shooting, everybody’s down at the schoolyard praying. Now you done run him off your property, but as soon as there’s trouble, here you come, “We’re gonna have a prayer vigil down at the school because we had a shooting.” You know, it seems quite easy to me, sir, if you had had that prayer vigil before that shooting, if you had let God come in that building before that shooting, if you had told those students, ‘Jesus Christ is the way and the light and only through him can you receive salvation,’ there wouldn’t have been no school shooting.
It’s too late now. Your little half-hearted attempts at soothing Jesus Christ, it’s not gonna work. You done kicked God out of your school. Children don’t know whether they men or women, they’re murdering each other with impunity, and can’t read on a grade level, all because you done turned your back on the wisdom of the man that built that schoolhouse you in.
Say it with me now: No one has ever kicked God out of public school. Kids can pray, read the Bible, and attend Christian clubs. The only thing that changed is that forced Christian prayers — the kind that are led by teachers or delivered over the public address system — are no longer permitted.
Conservatives have been lying about that for decades. Robinson managed to even add some transphobia into the mix.
I attended a public school with more than one copy of the Bible in the library. My teachers wore crosses around their necks and some had Bible verses taped to their computer monitors. No atheist organization has ever tried (or wants) to bar people from privately expressing their faith, such as praying before lunch or a math test, as long as it’s not coercive or disruptive.
Robinson is lying because the Christians around him refuse to tell him he’s wrong.
As for the school shooting lie, remember that other countries with far fewer religious believers have virtually no mass shootings at all. A lack of God isn’t the problem. (And even if Robinson was right, why did it take decades after the Supreme Court’s Bible decision in the 1960s before mass shootings became a regular occurrence?)
A person with this poor a grasp of history, law, and common sense shouldn’t be in government, much less a heartbeat away from the governor’s mansion.
(via Right Wing Watch)
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