title:  Texas Governor Wants Christian Crosses On Cop Cars
text: In a brief sent to the state Attorney General s office on February 5, Texas Governor Greg Abbott insisted that putting Christian crosses on police vehicles is a Constitutional right.In his brief, Abbott wrote: Even under the U.S. Supreme Court s expansive interpretation of the Establishment Clause s limited and unambiguous text, the Court has never held that public officials are barred from acknowledging our religious heritage. To the contrary, the U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized the demographic and historical reality that Americans  are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being. Of course that an absolute lie. The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled against any government sponsorship or endorsement of religion.Abbott goes on to claim that Christian cross bumper stickers on police vehicles  neither establish a religion nor threaten any person s ability to worship God, or decline to worship God, in his own way. I wonder if he would feel the same way about Islamic symbols on police vehicles? What about symbols used by the church of Satan? Do those belong on police vehicles?Like most Americans, I am tired of hearing the religious right whine about how their religion is under attack in the U.S., every time a judge tells them they cannot use public funds and resources to promote their personal religious beliefs.There is a big difference between the state oppressing Christians and the state banning Christians from promoting or endorsing their religion with taxpayer dollars and/or taxpayer property.If you want to put a Christian bumper sticker on your personal vehicle, no-one is standing in your way. If you want to put one on a publicly owned vehicle, that s an entirely different story.Why is this so difficult for right-wing Christians to comprehend?Much to the dismay of the Christian right, the government is not a vehicle for enforcing their hypocritical religious beliefs on the public.In light of the Christian right s constant attempts to use government to force their religious doctrine on others, it makes perfect sense that they would try to slap Biblical bumper stickers on police cars.When state legislatures pass laws banning oral and anal sex, denying rights to the LGBT community, attempting to ban non-Christians from practicing their religious beliefs, making atheist marriage illegal, even suggesting laws that would make not going to church a crime, it s already frighteningly clear that they want police to act as the armed enforcers of their religious doctrine.In spite of Governor Abbott s ill-informed brief on this subject, even the slightest semblance of police being used as the  enforcers of Christianity  is a clear violation of the Establishment Clause.Over and over and over again these right-wing nuts whine about how their religion is being oppressed in the United States.Let s get something straight. Religious oppression is when the government attempts to keep you from practicing your religion on your own time and using your own resources. Barring you from using the stuff other people paid for to promote your religion, is not oppressive.If the government were to force all Christians to wear a special ID badge designating their religion, that would be oppressive. Or if the government were to bar Christians from entering the country, simply because of their religion, that would be oppressive. Or if the government were to create a special database for Christians so that they could be easily identified and closely watched, that would be oppressive.Only the government does not do that to Christians.On the other hand, right-wing Christians in government, including Texas Governor, Greg Abbott, sincerely want to do those things to Muslims.Thankfully, the establishment clause was created to protect Christians from experiencing the kind of government oppression they would gladly inflict on others.It s also there to protect the rest of us from right-wing Christians who would use our government, our tax dollars, our public property and our public employees to force their skewed version of Christianity down everyone s throat with a police-issued revolver.Image from johndoeforty1 on Flckr, cc 2.0. *Some changes were made to this image