title:  Tennessee Republicans Pass Bill To Make The Bible The State’s Official Book
text: Tennessee the state that was so concerned about the First Amendment that they enacted a religious  freedom  act has just proven that the only religion they really care about is Christianity AND they don t care about the Constitution at all.The Tennessean reports:Tennessee is poised to make history as the first state in the nation to recognize the Holy Bible as its official book.After nearly 30 minutes of debate, the state Senate on Monday approved the measure, sponsored by Sen. Steve Southerland, R-Morristown, with a 19-8 vote, sending the legislation to Gov. Bill Haslam s desk.That s right, the state s Republicans passed a bill that make a religious book the state s official book, completely ignoring the Constitution s separation of church and state. As a matter of fact, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery told lawmakers that the bill is unconstitutional and they still went ahead and passed it anyway.The American Civil Liberties Union released a statement condemning lawmakers for their actions: Today Tennessee politicians have voted to reduce what is to many a sacred religious text to a political football. Lawmakers  thinly-veiled effort to promote one religion over other religions clearly violates both the United States and Tennessee Constitutions, as our state attorney general has already pointed out. While the Bible is an important book to many state residents, Tennesseans come from a rich diversity of faiths. Privileging one religion over another not only tramples on the Constitution, it marginalizes the tens of thousands of Tennesseans who choose to practice other religions or not to practice religion at all. We call on Governor Haslam to veto this legislation. Only one positive came out of this   if you are a cup half full kinda person   is that the GOP legislators proved, without a doubt, that all of their declarations of wanting to protect everyone s religious freedom was complete and utter bullshit. Like national Republican lawmakers, the only thing they are concerned with is protecting THEIR religion. They do not actually believe you have the right to worship a god different from theirs, they want everyone to be indoctrinated into Christianity and they don t care what they have to do to make that happen.Their decision to pass this bill goes against the very freedoms our country was built upon. Our founding fathers never wanted one religion to be held in higher regard than another, that s why they made sure to protect all religions in the very first amendment to our Constitution. Perhaps these lawmakers should try picking up an actual history book before introducing any more legislation.Featured image via Controversy360