Republican Jackass of the Week

Meet Edgar Starnes.

Here is a man who is so full of Christian love and Christian goodwill that he just can't help himself -- he wants to force his wonderful Christian religion on everyone in his state.

Yep. Welcome to North Carolina, the only state in the history of the USA that will have its very own, official, state religion.

I'll wait until you stop laughing.

Okay now? On with the story.

Seems like Ol' Edgar here never heard of that there dern ol' Constitution, pro-hibitin' the establishment of religion.

(Sorry. Whenever I think of one of these old redneck types, all I hear in my head is that old commercial where a hillbilly yells, "Yahooooo! Mountain Dew!" Nonetheless, I'll get back to writing in regular English now.)

See, Edgar done thunk -- er, Edgar thought he could get around the "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" clause because Congress wasn't establishing a religion on a federal level, the state of North Carolina was. See? Isn't that clever?

I guess Edgar never got up to the 14th Amendment, which basically says that no state shall make or enforce any law which would abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the country, or their life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, blah blah blah.

It means no local Jackass can overrule the US Constitution, plain and simple.

It had zero chance of ever passing.

It had zero chance of being deemed Constitutional, since, for over 100 years, the Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment does indeed cover state governments.

And the bill was withdrawn yesterday by the Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives.

But it was fun while it lasted. 

Edgar Starnes, Republican Jackass of the Week. Now back to regular programming...