Man, some of the locals in Mountain Home do not like that so many people who don’t approve of law-breakers voted in the town paper’s poll the other day. Some of the locals left some pretty grand comments. Here’s one from Frank:

If all you people would read the original article and learn some reading comprehension. The County leases that corner to the Chamber of Commerce. So the chamber can do what they want with it. And they want to display the nativity scene. I would suspect most of you dont live here. We here that are southern born and bred stick to our god and our guns and really dont care what you libtards think. Merry Christmas and GOD Bless you all.

Yes, the city is trying to skirt the law by leasing the land out to a group they know is going to put Christian iconography on government space. This actually puts the city in more dubious legal water than it was already in. Even if a group to which you were leasing government land uses it to proselytize, the government still can’t allow that. That’s like saying they rented the space to a local pastor who put up a cross. It’s still sectarian religion on government property while citizens with different beliefs are being actively blocked. But now they’re obviously trying to skirt the law, and it’s clear to any objective observer.

And you can just feel the Christian love dripping from “libtards.” If not there, you can certainly get it from the way “Merry Christmas” and “GOD Bless you” are snarled with no sincerity whatsoever. This is not the first time these phrases or “I’ll pray for you” have been uttered with condescending arrogance designed to make you feel inferior – to says, “Not only am I right and you are wrong, but I am a better person than you” or “You obviously can’t take care of (fill in the blank) yourself, and God won’t help you on his own, so I’ll pass along his blessing or pray on your behalf since he listens to me more.” It is a Christian’s passive-aggressive way (or a passive-aggressive Christian’s way) of putting you down.

It is, in my opinion, often a phrase used to get the last word in and more often than not to add insult to injury disguised behind a phrase that is actually meant to be used as a progressive thing. It is a dismissal tinged with a suggestion of smug superiority. It isn’t used in this instance for any of the reasons that are sensitive or compassionate, as “Merry Christmas,” or “God bless you,” or “I’ll pray for you” implies. It is a condescending last-word-getter.

Saying “god bless you” or that you’ll pray for someone for the purpose of making them feel bad and making yourself feel superior, well that comes uncomfortably close to violating the spirit of the commandment not to take the Lord’s name in vain, at least as I understand it.

And it doesn’t matter if we live there, we live in America. Constitutional violations in America effect all of us. I don’t live in Louisiana either, but I’m sure glad they lock up thieves there.

Here’s another from Fire Eyes:

There is an ignorance of what the Constitution truly says and means on here that is disgusting and reveals just how much the liberal, anti-God crowd have succeeded in brainwashing people. Don’t tell me what courts have ruled because the courts didn’t write the Constitution. I’ll tell you what the Founders wrote hundreds of times. Read “Christianity and the Constitution” if you want to know the TRUTH. To the liberals and and Jesus haters on here, patience. It won’t be long before you have it all your way for 7 years. It only takes your way that long to destroy all of civilization. PS: Obviously the Quorum Court does NOT agree with the leftist, liberal, anti Jesus interpretation of the Constitution. I believe they far more accurately represent what this community believes than the haters on here.

First, if you’re going to go about accusing others of being brain-washed, it’s probably not best to do it from a church-going culture which gets together every week to reaffirm each other’s beliefs and to say “Amen!” in unison at all of the appropriate times while insisting people believe the ludicrous contents of a book because they’ll burn forever if you don’t. If we ever wanted to get into brain-washing (which we don’t), we know where to go for lessons.

Second, the people who think it’s wrong to deny the local freethinkers the same privileges granted to Christians keep getting called “anti-god.” This is perplexing since if you take the legal violations and discriminatory behavior by government officials out of the equation, we wouldn’t give a shit about the creche. Likewise, if it were on a church lawn or a private citizen’s lawn, we also wouldn’t give a shit. Why are we anti-god and not anti-discrimination? Anti-god does have a more frightening ring to it, but if you so desperately want to feel persecuted you’ll abandon your honesty, then you can’t have a whole lot of real examples of being persecuted, and nobody should really listen to you.

As far as ignorance of the Constitution, follow me to one of the first sections of the Constitution: Article 3, Section 1 which says:

“The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority….”

This specifically gives the Supreme Court the authority to interpret the Constitution under their judicial power over the law. If you take the baby step to admit the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, you are forced to accept that the Supreme Court has the right to rule on its interpretation. Yet here you are asking us to accept your assessment of Constitution and not theirs, since the interpretation of the court has consistently been that the establishment clause means there is separation of church and state.

There is realistically no denying that the Supreme Court has the authority to make that call, so that’s the way it is. Of course the theocrats (like Fire Eyes) will say SCOTUS made the wrong call, but no reasonable person is really going to accept the judgment of “truck stop lawyers” over decades of decisions by people whose lives are spent entrenched in the study of constitutional law and whose decisions are based on decades of established precedents. If the Separation clause is illegal, the federal judiciary must have been mistaken all these years, and still is.

They are the referees who have the authority to make the call, and they have clearly made the call for separation. Entertaining as the theocrat’s arguments against the Separation clause may be, they are scarcely new. By now they’ve failed to convince generation after generation of American judges. Why do you think that is?

Because of judicial bias or activist judges? Those are the reactionary buzz words of the day, aren’t they? Yet, there is no question that the overwhelming majority of church/state separation cases in what has undoubtedly and unarguably been a nation of Judeo-Christian background have nevertheless come down on the side separation. Let’s face it: until recently the population has been around 90% Judeo-Christian. That is the background of every single Supreme Court Justice ever, and clearly and consistently “separation” has been the winner. They haven’t done this because of their religious beliefs, but in spite of them.

And also, I’m told Christianity makes people more moral. Yet here’s a person happy, literally happy at the thought of atheists suffering through hell on earth for seven years (Fire Eyes is clearly referencing the Great Tribulation in Revelations 9). Giddy at the suffering of those with whom they disagree. Christian love on full display.

And you can tell me what the founders wrote. Many of them were believers. Hell, they could’ve all been Christians and it would mean for a moment that they didn’t realize that separation of church and state was essential for religious liberty. The right to freely practice being a Christian means the right to be free of a government enforcing Islam, and vice versa.

And as for Fire Eyes deferring to the Quorum Court over the SCOTUS, you realize that a Quorum Court is a body of commissioners with no inherent legal authority or expertise, right? No, no you don’t.

Here’s one from John:

I done 23 years defending a country that was founded on the principles of God. I just can’t understand how 1 percent run the 99 percent and I agree with others on here if it offends you don’t go look at it. I am smart enough to know if I jump in front of a speeding train I will die so I don’t do it if it offends you get smart and don’t look at it

. But I would encourage you to remember what you stood for when you are on your knees if front of the almighty God and said you denied him on earth and if you want to agree or not one day you will face God to be judged on you actions while on earth

Our nation was not founded on god, it was founded on religious liberty. What? Do you think our founding fathers weren’t bright enough to write Jesus or Yahweh into the Constitution if they had intended special privilege for Judeo-Christians? If so you are deluding yourself (and insulting the founders of this nation for whom you purport to have such great respect).

But even if you can convince yourself that our founders were too stupid to put Jesus into the Constitution if they wanted to form a Christian nation, you can still look at all the evidence confirming that we were built as a religiously pluralistic nation, not a Christian one. For instance, have you ever wondered what was the first law Congress ever passed? Well, this was it:

An Act to regulate the Time and Manner of administering certain Oaths was the first law passed by the Congress assembled after the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. It was signed by President George Washington on June 1, 1789, and parts of it remain in effect to this day.

Essentially the law dictated the oath most public officials had to take coming into office. It was “I, [FIRST NAME] [LAST NAME] do solemnly swear or affirm (as the case may be) that I will support the Constitution of the United States.” But this was not how it was in some original drafts, at least not entirely:

The oath in the final bill differed from the original proposal by excluding the two clauses mentioning God, as well as the phrase “a Representative of the United States in Congress thereof.”

God was proposed and they intentionally took it out. This is very strange if our founding fathers intended us to be a nation founded up (the Christian) god.

And we all know of the Treaty with Tripoli in 1797. Article 11 of that treaty reads, in part: “the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion…”. It’s right there in black and white in one of our nation’s primary documents. In America’s historical documents (not just quote-mine attempts of some of its influential figures) you will not find the opposite; claims that America was founded on the Christian religion. Not only did Washington read and approve the Treaty with Tripoli, the treaty was not ratified by the senate (it bears mention that it was ratified unanimously) until John Adams had been elected. When he signed it, Adams also wrote beneath his signature “Now, be it known, that I, John Adams, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the said treaty, do, by and within the consent of the Senate, accept, ratify and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof.”

And if we were a Christian nation, the Confederacy in the Civil War wouldn’t have felt the need to make all the changes they did. For instance, consider the preamble to the US Constitution against that of the Confederacy. Here’s the preamble for the US Constitution:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

And here’s the preamble for the Confederate Constitution:

We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent and federal government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, and secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our posterity—invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God—do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Confederate States of America.

Notice a difference? Which is why when Fire Eyes says they can tell me what the founding fathers wrote I just smirk. Many of them were Christians, but that didn’t mean they wanted a theocracy. Having seen the effects of a State Church in England, it makes perfect sense for our founders, even the Christian ones, to have a vested interest in religious liberty – hence the first amendment. What is far more telling of their intent is the laws and bills they passed (and what they didn’t write into them, namely anything to do with a theocracy).

And as for this “majority rules” bullshit, no. While majority vote is how we resolve questions of government, if the whims of the majority would deprive other citizens of equality or liberty, the Constitution nullifies it. This is why even if the majority wanted to put atheists in internment camps they’d be unable to do so. It’s also why almost every court that hears a challenge to a gay marriage ban, voted on by the majority of citizens, has struck them down. Do you think judges just don’t get that the majority voted for them or just don’t understand the Constitution? Get real.

And as far as “if you don’t like it, don’t look at it” goes, does that go the same for any other injustice? Hey, don’t like slavery? Don’t look at it. It’s not that we give a fuck about the creche, but we do give a fuck about municipalities that violate the Constitution and create second-class citizens of others. Damn right I don’t like injustice. The solution is to fix it, not to look away. When was your moralizing religion going to imbue you with that simple and obvious moral conclusion?

And of course, no bit of Christian outpouring would be complete without a threat at the end. Do as I say or god is going to roast you forever. Threats of pain are weak and speak to your morals. When you live your religion that way your religion disgusts me. This is why Christianity is losing out hardcore on the upcoming generation.

There are far more comments like these, but you get the gist.