Congressman Stephen Fincher (R-TN) has introduced legislation in the House promoting the “importance of religion.”

Here’s the purpose of House Resolution 789:

Reaffirming the importance of religion in the lives of United States citizens and their freedom to exercise those beliefs peacefully.

As if that was really a problem in our country…

After a series of statements like “Whereas the Bible is the best-selling book of all time,” we get into what Fincher really wants:

Resolved, That the House of Representatives– (1) reaffirms the importance of religion in the lives of United States citizens and their freedom to exercise those beliefs peacefully; (2) recognizes that Judeo-Christian heritage has played a strong role in the development of the United States and in the lives of many of the Nation’s citizens; (3) rejects efforts to remove evidence of Judeo-Christian heritage and references to God from public structures and resources; and (4) expresses support for preserving the freedom to exercise religious beliefs in the United States.

Basically, Fincher wants to fortify the way we promote faith through government and push this false notion that we’re a Christian Nation.

The Secular Coalition for America is all over it:

“A resolution that ‘reaffirms the importance of religion’ — specifically a Judeo-Christian religion — in the lives of Americans excludes the many Americans for whom religion is not important, or those who do not identify with a Judeo-Christian religion. This only serves to divide rather than unite Americans,” said Edwina Rogers, Executive Director of the Secular Coalition for America. “This resolution insinuates that because Christianity is the majority religion in the United States, the religion and its followers should be privileged by our government, but this logic is problematic — our Constitution is secular precisely to protect all Americans regardless of their religious beliefs or lack of religious beliefs.” … “This resolution attempts to cloud the issue by including statistics that indicate religious Americans are in the majority — in reality, it doesn’t matter if one hundred percent of the population is religious, that still does not change our nation’s founding principles,” Rogers said. “Our Constitution makes no reference to God and instead derives its power from ‘we the people’, our laws are made by politicians not clergy, and our First Amendment outlines a separation of religion and government that has consistently been upheld by our Supreme Court. Our government is secular — there are no two ways about it.”

The full text of the Resolution is here. It’s infuriating to read, so have fun with it.

The Resolution has only been introduced; no committee has approved it yet. But given the way Congress acts whenever religion comes up, it’s hard to believe this won’t pass.



