Imagine the Shock at Holy Roller and Greater Utopia Baptist Church!
Well, the light just went on in Louisiana.
They finally figured out that giving tax money to religious schools might not be exactly what they wanted.
You mean Islam is a religion? No way.
Rep. Valarie Hodges, R-Watson, says she had no idea that Gov. Bobby Jindal’s overhaul of the state’s educational system might mean taxpayer support of Muslim schools.
“I actually support funding for teaching the fundamentals of America’s Founding Fathers’ religion, which is Christianity, in public schools or private schools,” the District 64 Representative said Monday.
“I liked the idea of giving parents the option of sending their children to a public school or a Christian school,” Hodges said.
Hodges mistakenly assumed that “religious” meant “Christian.”
Imagine their shock, shock I tell you, that “religious” did not mean “only Christian.”
They voted to fund religious schools and then went all shaky-kneed when Islam and Wicca and Unitarians claimed to be religious. I guess they thought that whole “freedom of religion” thingy meant “free to be a Christian.”
I have a mildly difficult time imagining that the same people who created Bourbon Street and Mardi Gras and eating alligators could be intolerant of people who are different. I dunno. Maybe it’s just me.
Thanks to everybody who gave me the heads-up.
How is it legal to fund tax exempt institutions with tax payer money?
1Imagine that “religion” means something more than “my brand of narrow minded, mouth breathing, snake handling, christianity”! As my Mom would say, you’ve made your bed now sleep in it.
For the record, the folks that created Bourbon St, etc., were all washed out of the state on purpose by a little thing called Katrina. What’s left is the folks who think “religion” has a rather narrow meaning.
2I love seeing people get exactly what they deserve.
3My Daddy used to say, “Be careful what you pray for, you might get it.”
4*facepalm*
Good gravy, will they ever learn?
5#readingthinkingohcrap
6Oh you guys, you didn’t think that these folks would consider all of the possible outcomes did you? Bless their hearts
7(that means what a bunch of morons right?).
Wait till Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo applies for vouchers.
8Some people make it easy to remember that this country’s first Europeans were Puritans who came so they could practice their religion, not so others who disagreed with them could practice theirs. Remember Roger Williams, and many others?
9from my heavily padded study in north east Texas…
Oh my heavens, where to start??
1. Valarie Dawn Hope Hodges (born March 12, 1955) IS old enough to know better. Neither ignorance nor stupid is an excuse or a defense.
2. I presume from the expression of angst the LA lege failed to define “religion” for the purposes of this legislation. Haven’t they passed a law before? Have they never heard of “due diligence”?
3. I have to sympathize empathize with “Lorraine in Spring”. Tentative answer: If the best predictor of a particular behavior is a history of that behavior, then failing to learn by experience in the past will suggest a probability of failing to learn by experience in the future.
10I went to Catholic school when I was young, k-8 and the nuns there were adament about not receiving “State Funding” because it would limit what they could teach. These nuns were Irish for the most part, First and Second generation who’s families came from Ireland and were well aware of what happens when Church and State are not separate. BTW we paid $5 a year “school tax” aka tuition to go to the Catholic school.
11Gee, I’m suprised the Scientologists didn’t get in on the act for this windfall.
When I heard about this I did a face palm and thought, “What could possibly go wrong with this plan?” seems like they figured it out.
Thanks for the reminder Corinne. I try to reshape history by thinking they came here to escape religious persecution. But alas, you are correct and I am wrong. I must apologize to my mother who becomes more narrow minded and intolerant the longer she lives at the “Christians against everything different” retirement center. Sigh!
12I bet Valarie Hodges is also a firm supporter of freedom of speech–as long as it’s speech she approves of, of course. Bless her little heart and her littler mind.
13There are some wonderful things about Louisiana not the least of which is their ability to cook everything that flies, crawls, walks, or swims and make it taste good. However, they get no marks for tolerance or intelligence when they elect people like Jindal and Valarie Hodges. At least Huey Long was up front about being crooked.
The reason they dwell so much on being Christian is that they keep thinking that if they keep talking about being one they won’t have to act like one.
14Hodges mistakenly assumed that “religious” meant “Christian.”
***
She and I have one thing in common:
We were both wrong.
For YEARS, I labored under the mistaken belief that “Christian” means “Follower of Christ”, whereas apparently, for ol’ Val, it just means a-hatin’ on anyone who’s not your particular type of fundamentalism or skin color.
And DEFINITELY none of that “love your neighbor as yourself” silliness…
15@Corinne: Thanks for reminding me of the Puritans–who have “evolved” into the Congregationalists/Unitarians”. I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for the “Christianists” to evolve, since they don’t believe in that, either.
16Oh, and let me remind all the good folks at TWMDBS that, should one of these state laws show up at the Supreme Court–under the First Amendment, which none of these bozos seem to have read or understood–there is not one Protestant who is a member of SCOTUS. Nope. Six Catholics and three Jews. HAHAHAHAHAHA!
17Love a duck—she’s dumb!
18Loved a cartoon a while back in which a teacher was told that she had to give the kids the “alternative” to evolution. Being Hispanic, she gave them the Aztec creation myth, which was not what the school board had in mind.
Maybe a few tiny little adult minds will get widened by the realization that there are still other “alternatives”….
19Well as I’ve always said, back when they took the Quaalude off the market they must of dumped them all into Lake Pontchartrain and they’ve all been a little slow ever since, bless their little empty hearts.
20I’m assuming that Ms. Hodges is a product of the fine Public School Edumacation offered in the that great state on the other side of the Sabine, where they teach if you can think it, then it must be from God, cause the Preacher said so….
Y’all, when I was growing up there, La (not to be confused with LA) was essentially a banana republic. I see things have only digressed. Waaay back in those olden days there actually were places that offered a good edumacashun. The hubs and I happened to be lucky enough to live in two of those places. That’s not to say there weren’t idiots among us. There surely were. They were mostly kept out of office or at least kept quiet.
It looks like all that petrol pollution is finally taking its toll. Or somebody(ies) put several boatloads of stupid in the drinking water. [Mitch, how do you explain the crazies in north La?] Or something. My fambly that’s still there surely seems to have drunk it. SIGH!!!! I have a relative (don’tcha just love the many definitions of that word?) with a number of higher degrees, was even an elected official (!), who to this very day believes Mr. Obama is a secret Mooslim who wants to destroy Christianity. BIG SIGH!!!! So maybe it is edumacashun and not education that’s going on there. Or maybe the landscape is just too damn Christ Haunted. [Juanita Jean, will that particular combination bother your good Baptist Mama?]
I know for a fact the good Southern Baptists in north La used to send missionaries to them heathen Cath-o-licks in south La. Still doing it for all I know. The fambly that’s still there doesn’t attend church much, if at all, since our Daddy, the good Baptist deacon, died. So at least I don’t have to listen to a lot of Holy Talk along with the N word and other hate talk. But if somebody threatened to shut the church doors for good they would be right there. Uh huh!
21Jesus Christ was a Jew.
Does she not support Hebrew schools?
Is this woman sooo stupid that she doesn’t even realize how stupid she she sounds/appears?
This is a law suit waiting to happen if these stupid people passed a law with the intent of funding ‘christian education’ only.
And they complain about the competency of high school grads, looks who is making the laws!
22They still have schools in Louisiana?
23“I actually support funding for teaching the fundamentals of America’s Founding Fathers’ religion, which is Christianity,”
This will come as a rude shock to Mistah Jeffason (as he is known here in VA.) He was a straight up Deist. He was, however, bright enough not to publish that fact. Of course, a number of other Founding Fathers were also Deists and some were just plain agnostics.
24I look forward to hearing about the Deist schools started in Louisiana, but I’m not holding my breath.
Louisiana is not longer the Pelican State but will now be known as the Madrassa state I wonder if Peter King (idiot from New York) will be investigating the Louisiana state funded madrassas.
25Good Ole Gal Valarie is only a high school graduate.
26Wait ’til she finds out Jesus is the most often quoted prophet in the Koran.
27I can’t help feeling that we were cheated. Australia got the convicts, we got the puritans. They got the better deal!
28A truly breathtaking display of stupidity.
29It’s been at least 36 hours since I first saw this and I’m still rolling my eyes and laughing…
30Jesus is a Jew
Xians follow a cross (from my childhood insane rememberings, “get on your knees at the foot of the cross and beg God for forgiveness”) “Christ” followers are usually pretty nice folks,
Buddhists, as in the Dali Lama “my religion is kindness” are where its at–
Can we fund schools that teach kindness, please?
Thjere are at least 20 different religions.
world religions
Major Religions Chart
Religion Date Founded Sacred Texts Membership
Christianity 30 CE The Bible 2,039 million
Islam 622 CE Qur’an & Hadith 1,570 million
Hinduism 1500 BCE with truly ancient roots Bhagavad-Gita,
Upanishads, & Rig Veda 950 million
No religion – None 775 million
Chinese folk religion 270 BCE None 390 million
Buddhism 523 BCE The Tripitaka 350 – 1,600 million
Tribal Religions,
Shamanism,
Animism Prehistory Oral tradition 232 million
Atheists No date None 150 million
New religions. Various Various 103 million
Sikhism 1500 CE Guru Granth Sahib 23.8 million
Judaism Note 3 Torah, Tanach, & Talmud 14.5 million
Spiritism 12.6 million
Baha’i Faith 1863 CE Alkitab Alaqdas 7.4 million
Confucianism 520 BCE Lun Yu 6.3 million
Jainism 570 BCE Siddhanta, Pakrit 4.3 million
Zoroastrianism 600 to 6000 BCE Avesta 2.7 million
Shinto 500 CE Kojiki, Nohon Shoki 2.7 million
Taoism Note 4 550 BCE Tao-te-Ching 2.7 million
Other Various Various 1.1 million
Wicca Note 5 800 BCE, 1940 CE None 0.5 million?
Source : religious tolerance
31“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
32Ghandi
Whenever I hear the words”founding fathers” in connection with religion my hair stands on end and my skin creeps. I know the fool couldn’t name 2 “founding fathers” to win a million dollars, and certainly never read any origional documents. I usually suggest they read Jefferson’s Draft Copy of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and Madison’s comments on Europe’s religious poison being kept from our shores. That Statute is listed on Jefferson’s tomb, along with “Founder of the University of Virginia”. President of the U.S. is not listed. Wonder what he would think of the nuts in Virginia now – the University didn’t help much.
After the rector admonished George Washington for leaving church before communion, he stopped going to church alltogether. I guess he didn’t like that blood sacrifice thingy – eat by body, drink my blood—pagan at best.
33The longer I live, the more I observe that ignorance really is bliss.
If you haven’t read it before, look up “Our Godless Constitution” formerly published in The Nation magazine. It’s well-researched and an eye opener.
34Love that “bless her/his/their heart”. Such a wonder old southern saying with such a wide range of meanings.
35Love this website.
If ignorance is bliss, Rep. Valerie Hodges is living in a state of Nirvana. Bless her heart.
36It is a fact that the founding fathers were men of faith. Different views of that faith, but with a general consensus that God (or a god) exists. (Ben Franklin thought that there was a big guy god who ruled over some less big guy gods who each ruled over a solar system. Polytheistic, in other words. @June Bug: I read one theory that Washington didn’t take communion because Paul said that anyone who took it “unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.” He didn’t consider himself worthy – so this theory goes.)
37However, what they did agree on is that government and religion did not mix, or if it did, it was a bad thing. Thomas Jefferson was almost bumptious about it. (Read the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. That was one of the three accomplishments he had put on his tombstone. Being president wasn’t one of them!)
I fear that no amount of direct evidence on their beliefs will make any difference to those like Rep. Hodges.
I think Jan’s got it right-
“no amount of direct evidence on their beliefs will make any difference”.
That goes for Rep. Hodges and the rest of the talibanista, religious, fundamentalist, right wing conservative Christians. I work in a regular viper’s nest of them.
38from my heavily padded study in north east Texas…
I’m suspending my rule absolute against double posting. I apologize in advance. I will be ashamed tomorrow, I always am.
That clause “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” likely addressed not only the obvious dichotomy of the English monarch being the “Defender of the Faith” head of the church but the fact that the states contained pockets of believers of unpopular religious doctrine that needed protecting from the majority, just as previous posters said more eloquently. So zooming forward to today that clause should serve to protect these unpopular churches from the majority. Odd is it not that this clause protects First United Methodist, Good Shepherd Catholic or Episcopal, and Westboro Baptist, Church of God’s Chosen, and a fundamentalist mosque. What a country! What a document!
39I think that when most of the current crop of elected idiots are confused over who our founding fathers were. They are confusing pilgrims with revolutionaries.
40I think that the bigger problem is that the current crop of elected idiots were put there by a lot of electors who still fancy themselves as revolutionaries, the living re-incarnation of the likes of Paul Revere, revolting against SOMETHING, be it “socialized medicine”, “gun grabs”, “atheists”, “elitists”, or any other cockanamie conspiracy-theory-based halfwit nonsense that they just read about on the Interwebs.
41America is like the adolescent pain in the ass child on the block that is having trouble growing up. The Revolutionary War ended a long time ago. It’s over. Time to grow up.