Texas is really messed up

Some Biblical guidance for Christian nationalists

Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins (Ecclesiastes 7:20); All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23); No one who is born of God sins; but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him (1 John 5:18; 1 John 3:6, 3:9)

No one has ever seen God (1 John 4:12); No man has seen or can see [God] (1 Timothy 6:16); The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day (Genesis 18:1); The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend (Exodus 33:11)

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. (Matthew 5:17–18); The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. (see Hebrews 8:6–13)

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:8–9); We maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law (Romans 3:28); Will [God] not repay everyone according to what they have done? (Proverbs 24:12); What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? (James 2:14); For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done (Matthew 16:27)

The mess in Texas

No one needs to mess with Texas. It has royally messed itself up. The news coming out of that state is beyond bizarre. At present the toxic influence of the Republican Party there is more a matter of hyper-radical Christian nationalism (CN) rampaging against civil liberties than it is ultra-wealthy radical right laissez-faire capitalists rampaging for more power and wealth and less government and taxes. Radical CN social engineering, call it Christian Sharia, is what CN is inflicting on Texas right now. It is what CN ideology and politics want to do to all of America. This stuff is terrifying.

One New York Times article makes clear the intense hate and cruelty that sacred, infallible CN fundamentalism holds against the LGBQT community. The NYT writes in an article entitled, Texas Court Halts Abuse Inquiries Into Parents of Transgender Children:

A judge said the governor’s order to consider medically accepted treatments for transgender youth as abuse had been improperly adopted and violated the State Constitution.

Investigations of parents with transgender children for possible child abuse were temporarily halted across Texas on Friday after a state court ruled that the policy, ordered last month by Gov. Greg Abbott, had been improperly adopted and violated the State Constitution.

The injunction, issued by Judge Amy Clark Meachum in Travis County, stemmed from a legal challenge by the parents of a 16-year-old transgender girl. Her family was among the first to be investigated by the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services under Mr. Abbott’s order, which directed state officials to consider medically accepted treatments for transgender youth — including hormones and puberty-suppressing drugs — as abuse.

CN ideologues hate non-heterosexuality so much that they consider it child abuse to medically support accepted treatments. Here, God has intervened in modern medicine. God crushed science to vindicate the religious beliefs that infallible self-righteous of CN adherents hold. Christian Sharia is above man-made law, including the US Constitution. That is a cherished CN dream. It is starting to come true in radical right states where CN is powerful enough to pass such awful laws.

In another display of the power of fundamentalist CN dogma on law, CN legislators may have figured out a way to pass laws that, for the most part, courts cannot examine for constitutionality. If this legal tactic works, the floodgates of CN discrimination and bigotry will open and remain unchecked as long as this CN tactic is held by courts to be legal. The NYT writes in an article entitled Texas Supreme Court Shuts Down Final Challenge to Abortion Law: 

The ruling says state officials have no authority to enforce the law, which empowers private citizens: “We cannot rewrite the statute.”

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday effectively shut down a federal challenge to the state’s novel and controversial ban on abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, closing off what abortion rights advocates said was their last, narrow path to blocking the new law.

The Texas law, which several states are attempting to copy, puts enforcement in the hands of civilians. It offers the prospect of $10,000 rewards for successful lawsuits against anyone — from an Uber driver to a doctor — who “aids or abets” a woman who gets an abortion once fetal cardiac activity can be detected.

By empowering everyday people and expressly banning enforcement by state officials, the law, known as S.B. 8, was designed to escape judicial review in federal court. Advocates of abortion rights had asked the Supreme Court to block it even before it took effect last September. The justices repeatedly declined, and said that because state officials were not responsible for enforcing the law it could not be challenged in federal court based on the constitutional protections established by Roe.  

Abortion rights supporters and legal scholars said the Texas law would encourage other states not only to pass similar bans on abortion, but to attempt to nullify other precedents they oppose.

It is not rocket science to see where this legal tactic is going. Once the tactic to evade courts is established for abortion, which is just one of the civil liberties that CN ideologues hate, the path is clear to do the same for other things they hate. Unfortunately, CN fundamentalists hate some important things that most Americans like. This isn't just about abortion. It is also about voting rights, gun rights, LGBQT rights, secularism, especially including secular public schools and education, pluralism (CN ideology is rigidly and radically White-centric and male dominated), obliterating what little is left of church-state separation, getting unfettered access to tax dollars to fund CN churches, schools and businesses, etc. What CN hates and will get rid of if allowed to includes some important things that most Americans support.  

That raises one last point that needs to be mentioned. Another aspect of CN fundamentalism and its dogma is its demand for loyalty and submission. It is inherently authoritarian and anti-democratic. CN fits easily and comfortably with the rising American fascism that the Republican Party now mostly openly supports. In this regard, elite CN fundamentalist radicals are comfortable and heavily overlapping with elite laissez-faire capitalists and their lust for completely unfettered markets, zero social responsibility and infinite profits come hell or high water. Contrary public opinion is of no concern to either the CN radicals or the capitalist radicals. For them, it is all about accumulating power and wealth and shutting people up if they do not like or support what the elites demand for all of us.

If there was such a thing, what is going on in the Republican Party today would be an unholy marriage made in hell.