Project Blitz: The Christian Nationalist Agenda.
Project Blitz was launched in 2015 by the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation, the National Legal Foundation, and Wallbuilders. The latter is an organization founded by David Barton, the Republican operative and discredited historian who rejects the separation of church and state, claiming that the United States was founded as a Christian nation.
This project seems to have maintained a low profile until Fred Clarkson, who has been studying the Christian right for decades, came across their 116-page manual of model legislation in early 2018. According to an analysis by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, state legislatures considered 74 bills that echoed model legislation from the Project Blitz Handbook.
The strategy for this effort is built on dividing model legislation into three categories, depending on how much opposition each bill is expected to receive.
The first category, intended to appear the most innocuous, included bills to promote "In God We Trust" license plates (now offered in at least 20 states) and the display of the "In God We Trust" motto in public schools. (Some version of the display legislation has passed in at least 10 states.)
The next batch of bills centered on emphasizing "Christian heritage" and "the importance of the Bible in history" to promote the notion that the U.S. is a Christian nation.
The third category sought to empower licensed professionals to deny health care and other services based on religious beliefs and to enable adoption agencies to reject adoptive families on religious grounds. (At least 10 states have laws that allow discrimination by child welfare agencies, most of which have been passed since Project Blitz launched in 2015.)
Source: This Alternet Article.
Project Blitz is a coordinated effort by Christian Nationalists to inject religion into public education, attack reproductive healthcare, and undermine LGBTQ equality using a distorted definition of "religious freedom".
In order to achieve these goals, the Project Blitz campaign arms state-level politicians with model bills, proclamations, and talking points through its legislative guide.
The Project Blitz guide receives yearly updates. The 2017/2018 playbook contained 116 pages and included 20 model bills.
In 2018, over 70 Project Blitz-related bills were introduced in state legislatures across the country. In late 2018, the playbook was expanded to 148 pages, and we expect even more Blitz bills to be introduced in states across the nation.
Source: Blitzwatch Website
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I am sure there are a lot of groups like that out there,now that the moral majority in defunct with the deaths of Jerry Falwell and Paul Weyrich.Places like Missouri,Oklahoma and Kansas will spawn many of these groups,which is what is known as the "buckle of the bible belt" in particular,Tulsa,OK.
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American history debunks and refutes Christian Nationalist mythology. America’s founders established a secular government with freedom of religion and its necessary corollary, separation of church and state, built into the First Amendment. A "Christian nation" was not what the founders sought. How do we know this? They said so. Think about it: If an officially Christian nation had been the intent of the founders, the Constitution would prominently include that concept. It doesn’t.
And those Christian Nationalist claims that separation of church and state is a myth? They’re a crock. As James Madison put it, "Strongly guard is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States." Madison ought to know. He's considered the Father of the Constitution and was one of the primary drafters of the First Amendment.
America has a legacy of freedom of religion. To Christian Nationalists, "religious freedom" means the freedom to exercise their right to use their religion to ruin other people's lives. When it comes to groups they don’t like, ideas like liberty and freedom suddenly evaporate.
Consider the controversy over the proposed Islamic center in lower Manhattan and efforts to block construction of a mosque in Murfreesboro, Tenn. Normally, once religious groups comply with local zoning laws, get the necessary permits and so on, they can build houses of worship where they please. Yet Brian Fischer, a columnist with the American Family Association, argued recently that the Constitution grants religious freedom rights only to Christians and said we can legally shut down mosques. Where does this appear in the Constitution? It doesn't. Fischer made it up.
America has a secular government. To Christian Nationalists, secular government, secularism and secular anything is the bogeyman of the moment. If you doubt it, just listen to some of our leading politicians (assuming you have the stomach for it). To most people, it just makes sense for government to remain neutral on theological disputes (remember the Middle Ages). To the Christian Nationalists, such neutrality equals hostility toward religion in general, and a "war" against Christianity.
Ironically, there is one place where the Religious Right backs secular government: Muslim nations. To America's Christian Nationalists, those should be secular, of course -- but only as a prelude to adopting fundamentalist Christianity.
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Last edited by Fnord on 24 Jan 2020, 11:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
This is pretty scary. The communities I've lived in would wholeheartedly support this sort of thing.
It's absurd how they purport to support "religious freedom" when they are just pushing a conservative Christian agenda. I've not been able to find the denomination that's primarily responsible.
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Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven. – Satan and TwilightPrincess
"Religious Freedom" means that Christian Nationalists are free to use their religion to abolish women's reproductive rights, make being LGBTQ a federal crime, and brainwash children in public schools into the Christian Nationalist version of Christianity.
It is not so much the MAGA hat-wearing crowd we should watch out for. Sure, their thuggery is a useful tool of the Christian Nationalists, and they certainly do have loud voices; but when you consider how little damage they've actually done (except for Heather Heyer, may she rest in peace), they're no worse than any other racist/sexist mob in the streets. No, it is the narrow-minded, self-righteous moralists of the Christian Nationalists re-making our laws to their sole advantage that we have to watch out for.
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It's absurd how they purport to support "religious freedom" when they are just pushing a conservative Christian agenda. I've not been able to find the denomination that's primarily responsible.
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Forever gone
Sorry I ever joined
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Christian nationalism sounds a lot like what led to the war in Bosnia 30 years ago.When national pride enabled by the fall of Yugoslavia,Serbian,Croatian and Montenegron ethnic pride mixed with there centuries old hatred of Islamic Bosnians and you had war and ethnic cleansing.
Religion was the main factor in this war and the hatred people had for the muslims in Bosnia which was a 700,800 year old hatred that eastern orthodox Serbs and Montenegrons and Catholic Croats had for muslim Bosnians.
People think it was all about ethnic pride but Slobodon Milosovic wasn't even Serbian,he was from Montenegro,he hated the Bosnians over there religion.And ethnic pride was also an issue after Yugoslavia disolved and the south slavs regained there ethnic identities that Yugoslavia(land of the south slavs) had condensed.
But it certainly was a deadly cocktail of religious hatred and national pride that led to the worst atrocities since WW2.
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Forever gone
Sorry I ever joined
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