(Second of a series that will counter highly organized MAGA disinformation about the Constitution that has been sweeping the nation.)

Thanks to 35 years of MAGA disinformation about the history of our nation and our Constitution, more than half of Americans today incorrectly believe that our Founding Fathers had intended our country to have an official religion. This grossly mistaken but widespread belief is the result of this 35-year disinformation campaign, popularized by books such as – but not limited to – The Myth of Separation first published in 1989.

MAGA propaganda during the 1990s falsely portrayed the Founding Fathers as fire-in-the-belly Christian fundamentalists. Repeated daily on far right media was the claim that “51 or 52 of the 55 founding fathers were born-again Christians,” and really intended our nation to be an officially religious dictatorship.

For decades, this falsehood has gone completely unchallenged in the mainstream media (MSM), to the great detriment of our civic knowledge and the continued security of our personal and religious liberties. And it continues unchallenged in the MSM today.

Let’s get one truth out of the way: A certain number of the Founders did want an officially Christian nation. But their wish was rejected at the Constitutional Convention, with a handful of concessions to the States.

Patrick Henry is often falsely attributed to this quote: “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ.” The quote in fact first appears in a 1956 issue of The Virginian magazine, and there is no evidence that Patrick Henry had ever penned it. The quote is so false that even The Christian Post calls it fake.

Believe what you will about Patrick Henry, but he would have been a vigorous opponent of Trumpism. Henry opposed the ratification of the Constitution, fearing that the Constitution ran the risk of – wait for it – an overly powerful federal government. Henry fiercely opposed an overly powerful central government, whereas Trumpism craves an all-powerful federal government with no Constitutional limitations whatsoever. Even one of MAGA’s most misquoted “Christian nation” advocates, Patrick Henry, would have been a bitter foe of all-powerful Trumpism.

MAGA likes to play dishonest word games with the phrase “separation of church and state,” claiming that the term was never once mentioned during the Constitutional Convention. Well, no shit. The convenient, handy, concise term for the ideals of the First Amendment had not been coined until 1802. It is desperate and dishonest to try to expect the Founders’ to use a term that had not been coined yet, and claim that failure to use the as-yet nonexistent term amounts to “proof” that the concept is not found in the Constitution.

This deep dive into the significance of the separation of church and state appears at the Library of Congress. I have preserved a copy of this page in the event that it is purged from the Library of Congress by MAGA.

Of the article’s many compelling points, the most irrefutable and indisputable appears in the 1878 Supreme Court decision, Reynolds v. United States. In a decision whose language could hardly be mistaken for licentiousness, it affirms:

“‘Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions — I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore man to all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.‘

Coming as this does from an acknowledged leader of the advocates of the measure, it may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the amendment thus secured. Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order.”

There is no refuting that, MAGA. None. An AUTHORITATIVE DECLARATION, in the eyes of the very conservative Supreme Court of 1878.

In 1845, President James K. Polk, in his inaugural address, affirmed that “All distinctions of birth or of rank have been abolished. All citizens, whether native or adopted, are placed upon terms of precise equality. All are entitled to equal rights and equal protection. No union exists between church and state, and perfect freedom of opinion is guaranteed to all sects and creeds.“

Slam Dunk, MAGA. Though our nation has often fallen well short of its ideals, the separation of church and state is, in fact, a key feature of our Constitutional system of government.

But the deeper question is: Why does MAGA insist on spreading this lie, and what do they hope to gain from it?

Stay tuned for the next episode.