We'll twist everything to our cause

Whatever lies they say they are certainly thorough about it.

A legislative document, whether law or proclamation, usually begins with a string of "Whereas" to justify its existence. For example, when a citizen is being honored, the whereas clauses will give the reasons for the honor. This results in a single very long sentence.

US House Bill 888 may not hold the record for the number of "whereas" clauses -- there are 75 -- but it certainly comes out on top for both thoroughness and deceit. It designates the first week in May as "American Religious History Week" in which schoolkids are to learn of America's history of religious faith. Those 75 "whereas" clauses justify how it is that America is a Christian nation. They go through all sorts of documents from America's Founding Era (and later), misinterpreting and twisting as they go, to "prove" that America is supposed to be a theocracy and we had better teach our kids that before they are old enough avoid being brainwashed. The bill was submitted late last year and the Democratic committee chair has had the good sense to sit on it.

I can't document all 75 ways in which American history has been twisted -- Chris Rodda needed nine blog postings for the task and I don't particularly want to wade through the muck -- but I will describe one case to show how it is done. The claim:

"Whereas the constitutions of each of the 50 states, either in the preamble or body, explicitly recognize or express gratitude to God;"

The claim comes from William Federer, which appeared on WorldNetDaily in October of 2003.

Never mind that 25 of these state constitutions were written after 1845 when the Founding Generation would have been long buried and thus can't be used to determine the Founder's intent.

Don't mind that he didn't use the original constitutions of another 13 states, but took revisions from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, another time when religion was making government inroads. Nor mind those early states that took out references to God in later versions.

Of the others, several do acknowledge God -- in the clause that guarantees religious freedom. An example of that wording is from Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom of 1786:

"Whereas Almighty God hath created the mind free … That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever…"

Other attempts to prove our Christian roots include:

The most frequently cited source in the Founding Era was the Bible. That's because there were a huge number of sermons printed as tracts.

Congress appropriated money for mission work among Indians. Nope, government schools were always secular.

Congress saw a national shortage of bibles and arranged for more to be imported. Much of the claim was never actually said by Congress, and while a bill to import bibles made it out of committee, it was not passed by the full Congress.

In 1795 public worship was administered at the Capitol every Sunday at 11:00. Well, yeah, in the tobacco shed at the foot of Capitol Hill, not in the Capitol Building.

These examples are from Chris Rodda's first blog entry of January 4, 2008.

An entry from April 26 lists all the other blog articles that document the nonsense. This one also explains why the silly thing won't die. The Right claims the bill is ignored because of its religious content, not because it is filled with lies. They are thorough in their lies and persistent in promoting them.