In any country other than the U.S.—save perhaps in the Middle East—this headline would be assumed to be a spoof. But here in the U.S. it’s business as usual, especially in the South. The Johnson City Press in Tennessee reports that state representative James (Micah) van Huss, who has a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Pensacola Christian College (a fundamentalist school), has proposed a state constitutional amendment, presumably derived from a revelation.

[The amendment is] an addition to the the Constitution of Tennessee that would recognize absolute governance by the Christian god rather than the government. And it’s to that very god that Van Huss beseeches passage of the resolution. ”I’m praying about it,“ Van Huss said. The joint resolution would acknowledge a higher power giving rights and laws, rather than democratically elected officials. “We recognize that our liberties do not come from governments, but from Almighty God, our Creator and Savior,” is the passage Van Huss has proposed be added to Article I in House Joint Resolution 71.

Not just God, but the Christian God! Now riddle me this, dear readers—what party do you think van Huss represents? Yep, you’re right.

This bill would never pass, I think, even in Tennessee, for it would immediately be struck down as a violation of the First Amendment, even by our conservative Supreme Court. So why does van Huss want it?

The reason Van Huss says he sees this as a positive course for action has everything to do with trends he sees across the country. “As a nation, we are drifting from the morals of our founding, and I think it’s important to reaffirm that our liberties do not come from the King of England,” Van Huss said. “They do not come from Barack Obama. They come from God.” . . . According to Pew Research’s Religion Map, Tennessee boasts an 84 percent rate of people who believe in the Christian god. Van Huss agreed his beliefs are on par with the vast majority of his fellow Tennesseans.

Why didn’t God give the same liberties to other countries, then? Did He vouchsafe our liberties uniquely to the United States?

The Johnson City paper gets some reactions from legal experts, including one at the Freedom from Religion Foundation who is concerned about the amendment. But van Huss doesn’t see it as illegal:

Van Huss admits he’s no legal expert, but he said he believes HJR71 would not be unconstitutional because it would give Tennesseans a choice brought forth through the democratic process. “Again, we the people are a representative democracy and we vote on all kinds of things people don’t agree with,” Van Huss said. “That’s why this is a vote of the people of Tennessee who’ve been given an opportunity to make that statement.”

That’s why we have the Bill of Rights, for crying out loud—precisely so democratic voting can’t overturn what the Founders saw as Americans’ “inalienable rights”! If a legislator doesn’t understand that the Constitution places limits on democracy, not only in its Bill of Rights but in the power of the President to veto, and of the Supreme Court to declare democratically voted laws unconstitutional, then he has no business governing Tennessee, much less a d*g pound.

Here are two pictures of the man from his website, which is a blast—so long as you don’t think about the fact that he was actually elected:

Oh, and if you think that revised law is nuts, check out this one, calling for the criminalization of sodomy—with the death penalty!