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Two woman discussing separation of church and state:

I don’t see why there’s a need for separation, the majority of Americans are Christians.

Oh, you want your life controlled by the Pope?

Why would you ask that?

Well, the biggest Christian church in this country is the Catholic Church, so don’t get too carried away with your democratic visions. The Catholic Church has a lot of experience telling countries what to do and their congregations how to vote.

There are more Protestants than Catholics.

But Protestants don’t act or think like a single group and they can’t even agree on the version of the Bible to use, so the Catholics would get the most votes while the Baptists argue about what kind of Baptists they are. If my people had wanted to take orders from Catholics, they’d have stayed in Europe.

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Historical note: many states have a “Blaine amendment” in their constitution. The purpose of the amendment was to prevent Catholic schools from receiving funding. Of course these amendments now prevent funding of any religious school.

This chunk of bigotry is now working against the bigots. James G. Blaine was riding the rise of “nativism” [the American “Know Nothing” Party] of the 19th century, which was reborn as the new KKK after World War I. Anyone who wasn’t a Northern European Protestant was “evil” and should be ejected from the United States.

This garbage keeps being revived. Folks, it was bigotry in the 19^th century; it was bigotry in the 20^th century; and it is bigotry in the 21^st century. Changing the color of the ribbon on the package doesn’t make the contents smell any better. No matter what you call it, the odor tells you what it is.

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