What is it: silly season for the First Amendment? Apparently, for according to WWLTV in New Orleans, the Louisiana legislature is considering another totally unconstitutional bill:

BATON ROUGE, La. — Lawmakers are moving ahead with a proposal to name the Bible as Louisiana’s official state book, despite concerns the bill would land the Legislature in court. A House municipal committee advanced the bill Thursday with an 8-5 vote, sending it to the full House for debate. Rep. Thomas Carmody, R-Shreveport, said he sponsored the proposal after a constituent made the request. But Carmody insisted the bill wasn’t designed to be a state-endorsement of Christianity or a specific religion. “It’s not to the exclusion of anyone else’s sacred literature,” he told the House committee. Again, later he said, “This is not about establishing an official religion of the state of Louisiana.”

Who is he kidding? Everyone knows that this bill is palpably unconstitutional, making a Judeo-Christian text into an official state emblem. Curiously, four of the eight voting for the bill were Democrats. As usual, the sponsors pretend this doesn’t have anything to do with Christianity:

Rep. Barbara Norton, D-Shreveport, said she didn’t feel qualified to “vote on anything that’s related to the Bible,” so she voted against it. Rep. Ebony Woodruff, D-Harvey, said adopting the Bible as the state’s official book could be offensive to people who live in the state and who aren’t Christian. “You’re OK with offending some of the citizens of this state?” she asked. “It’s not meant to be offensive,” Carmody replied. “There’s no requirement that they would have to follow this particular text.”

This guy is either one neuron shy of a synapse, or, more likely, he’s simply dissimulating. This stupid bill offends everyone who follows the U.S. Constitution, a group that apparently doesn’t include Carmody or many citizens of Louisiana. If they’re going to choose a version of the Bible (Carmody suggested a specific version, perhaps the King James translation), he could at least have used this one.

h/t: Jarle