Rep. Mary Miller ― a Republican from Illinois who once praised Adolf Hitler ― wrote, edited and ultimately deleted a social media post decrying “a Muslim” speaking in Congress.

“It’s deeply troubling that a Muslim was allowed to lead prayer in the House of Representatives this morning. This should have never been allowed to happen,” she wrote Friday. “American was founded as a Christian nation, and I believe our government should reflect that truth. May God have mercy!”

The man leading the prayer was guest chaplain Giani Singh, a follower of the Sikh faith, not Islam. Miller’s Republican colleague Rep. Jeff Van Drew (N.J.) introduced him as such on Friday.

  • hopesdead@startrek.website
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    8 months ago

    Wow, this is exactly what someone who 1. doesn’t practice real Evangelical Christianity would say 2. would believe not having studied the most basic of United States history.

    The separation of Church and State is exactly that. The Colonist came to North American because they didn’t like how the Church of England was being operated. In practice they might not have wanted other religious groups to have such freedom but if you try to take the Bill of Rights and Constitution at face value, then you as a person in the United States government have no reason to judge them for being a non-Christian. Much like how I much challenge you to prove you belong to a well regulated militia when you own a gun.

    • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I mean, let’s be real. The Pilgrims caught a ride. This country was basically founded by tobacco companies. The Virginia and Plymouth companies weren’t charities.

    • LupusBlackfur@lemmy.world
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      1. would believe not having studied the most basic of United States history.

      😂 🤣

      As if whatever lessons she may have been exposed to in school were not simply written off as the school personnel trying to “groom her” and/or “fuck up her faith” for their own liberal ends…

      😂

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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      But social media are garbage because of the platform. It’s just built the way to present it as how the users are.

      It’s like saying that gasoline is not the cracking process, it’s the oil.

  • AA5B@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    This is indeed deeply troubling. Whoever voted for that racist piece of shit should be ashamed

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      Well you see, the thing about conservatives is that they are fucking stupid self-serving liars.

      FTFY

      This bitch knows damn well America isn’t a “Christian nation,” but she’ll shout it from the rooftops if she thinks she can get away with it in order to advance her hateful, bigoted agenda.

      Do. Not. Give. Her. Any. Benefit. Of. The. Doubt.

      • Sunflier@lemmy.world
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        Well you see, the thing about conservatives is that they are fucking stupid self-serving liars evil.

        Fixed it for you. Some of the old school Republicans are that, true. But, this new Republican party adopted their sinister mindset because “god said so”. While a few of them are motivated by greed, this shit-fest is motivated by legitimate belief. Incidentally, this is the same minset that motivated the crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, 9/11, and ISIS. Its a fundamentalist mindset where they can jusify evil in god’s name.

        This bitch knows damn well America isn’t a “Christian nation,”

        Maybe, or maybe she actually believes the lie. Or, maybe, she thinks it her mission to turn the United States into the holy land (ISIS thought the same thing about the middle east, and probably the world).

        she’ll shout it from the rooftops if she thinks she can get away with it in order to advance her hateful, bigoted agenda.

        Yep. She’s a true believer.

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Counterpoint: none of the beliefs you mentioned, from the Crusades to the Inquisition, were ever “legitimate.” Evil is never legitimate, by definition.

        • KT-TOT@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          The older Republicans of Limbaugh and Raegan?

          Before that, who opposed civil rights?

          The ones before that, who refused to hang the confederates after the war?

          Never has the conservative in this country been not-evil, the moderate core is unable to give a fuck Amir anything but their own American dreams.

          • Sunflier@lemmy.world
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            The older Republicans included guys Theodore Roosevelt or Eisenhower, the ones who wanted a small government that leaves you alone. They seem to have died off after Regan.

    • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world
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      Then why is a chaplain leading prayer in Congress? A secular nation wouldn’t even have opening prayers at any branch of government.

      • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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        Because religious zealots have infiltrated and subverted our government into something barely recognizable. Separation of church and state is a vital part of the US constitution, it’s quite sad to see that forgotten or ignored by our supposed “leaders” in Congress in order to appease radical religious fundamentalists.

    • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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      The first openly atheist Congress member became open about it in 2007.

      The second “non-religous” member was Krysten Sinema.

      There was a Congressperson that came out as gay in 1987 but didn’t admit he was an atheist until he left Congress.

      You can say it was founded as secular, in theory, but in reality it’s been basically Christofascist in fact for its entire history.

  • fluxion@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Dumbfuck can’t even get her religions straight, and apparently she thinks America was founded to be a Christian theocracy. Astoundingly ignorant and misinformed, yet there she sits Congress, governing the nation with her 2 brain cells.

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      the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion

      – Treaty of Tripoli, 1797

    • billwashere@lemmy.world
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      Sometimes I really wish the founding fathers were around to just say, “Yeah, we were all atheists when we did this America thing. It just wasn’t fashionable at the time. So this idea that American was founded on Christianity, is well, just bullshit”

      I mean they were literally fleeing religious persecution. Why would they bake religion into what they were creating?

      • Critical_Thinker@lemm.ee
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        they were literally fleeing religious persecution. Why would they bake religion into what they were creating?

        Because everyone thinks their opinions are the right ones.

        Someone persecuting you doesn’t mean you’ll go somewhere else and not persecute others who are not on your side.

      • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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        In fairness a lot of the people “fleeing religious persecution” were the nutcases who thought there wasn’t enough of it.

          • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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            Well they weren’t fleeing persecution at all. Most of them were born in the US, years after the Quakers had stopped being persecuted in England.

            Mostly Christians, but in the same way my parents say they’re Christian. A churchless general belief in god and heaven. Deists, I think the proper word is.

            • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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              I tend to call this type “nominal xtians”. They might not have thought too much about the topic, don’t really know anything at all about “the” bible, the doctrines of the denomination their parents/grandparents were part of, never go to church except maybe for weddings/funerals, etc…but also don’t consider themselves agnostics or atheists. Often they may say they are spiritual, but not religious.

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        While they were fleeing religious persecution, they were not atheists. The original Pilgrims were Christians who believed the church of England to be beyond redemption. All of the founding fathers were raised in some Christian belief system, and more or less practiced their respective branches of Christianity.

        They were certainly more open-minded in accepting beliefs that deviated from their own, but also certainly not atheist.

        • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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          The pilgrims weren’t really fleeing religious persecution. In the UK they faced the consequences of their religion’s actions after they took power during the interregum and were just the fucking worst, including banning Christmas. So they fled to the Netherlands where they were horrified to learn that religious freedom didn’t give them the right to force their religious beliefs on others. So they fled religious tolerance to America where they were able to be as awful as they wanted

        • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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          Eh, some were about as close to atheist as the social norms of the time would really permit. If you look at Jefferson, he made his own version of “the” bible in which he excised all the superstition. In their day, the Inquisition was still going on (ended in 1834) and making your own version of “the” bible was exactly the kind of thing that would get you declared a “heretic”.

          And then there is Thomas Paine…certainly being a Deist is something likely to get you in trouble with the crazy Inquisition types…as well as the Southern Baptists today…

  • arin@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    To be fair i feel the same way about any non-buddhist(or other peaceful) religion speaking.

  • CalipherJones@lemmy.world
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    Tax exemptions for religion are in part to stop the majority religion from taxing minority religions out of existence.

    • Zenith@lemm.ee
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      Also taxation means representation. It’s not that churches should be taxed, they should be stripped of their status for political activity. I do not want any church having the right to representation in my secular government

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    The US was founded as a secular state… No getting around that. There were only a few devout christians in the original group of founding fathers. Most were deist. They had the recent memory of the thirty years wars where catholic and protestant armies had rampaged back and forth across Europe stealing the peoples food. Raping and burning out anyone who wouldn’t convert. They did this to many who did convert. It was said at the time that they everyone kept two sets of bibles. They just hid one or the other depending on who had taken over at the time. That asshole regressive wouldn’t ever be willing to admit that. Because she is too stupid to learn it.

    • Zenith@lemm.ee
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      A secular nation shouldn’t be having in house prayers from any denomination.

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      I would take it one step further and say they (founding fathers) were possibly even atheists, or at the extreme, very agnostic theists with the idea that IF god does exist, he doesn’t care or bother about us (which of course is deism). It would have been very unpopular back then to say god doesn’t exist, so deism was a step in that direction. Just my theory.

      • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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        In some cases sure. Hamilton was very religious. He was also tolerant of other. The main consensus among the founding fathers was tolerance of differing beliefs. Something these ignorant fools today never learnt or most probably ignore.

        • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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          Today’s reactionaries hate the (actual) American project as much as Tories way back when did.

          They hate it with every fiber of their being. All their rhetoric about “America first” and the flag-waving and the pearl-clutching over “the troops”…all performative bullshit. They hate liberal democracy, they hate the Constitution, they hate the rule of law, and they hate freedom.