“Religious” ≠ “Christian”. OMFG.

I think the religious right is reading a different Constitution than the rest of us. It’s the only explanation for the shit I’m reading these days. If I had to guess, the conservative version of the Constitution looks something like this:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion any religion other than one specific brand of mega-church Evangelicalism, which is totes awesome . . .

Yeah. I think they also use a different dictionary and thesaurus, which I’ll get to in a moment.

Let me preface by saying that I, personally, don’t think taxpayer money should be used to fund private religious schools through vouchers; this, by the way, is coming from somebody who went to a private religious school. With that said, if you are going to fund private religious schools, it’s only fair to follow what the actual Constitution describes and fund religious schools from any religion and not just your own very specific brand of Christianity.

That’s what’s so monocle-dropping awesome about this reaction from Louisiana Republican Valarie Hodges. Upon learning that Governor Bobby Jindal’s voucher program would fund private schools from religions other than Christianity, she had this to say:

We need to insure that it does not open the door to fund radical Islam schools. There are a thousand Muslim schools that have sprung up recently. I do not support using public funds for teaching Islam anywhere here in Louisiana.”

The best part is when you consider this in context to her previous position on using public funding for private religious 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.”

Holy shit, you guys, did you know that the word “religious” ≠ “Christianity?” OMFG, I can’t believe it, either.

Let’s ignore fact that she’s completely wrong about the religion of the Founding Fathers, since it’s actually Deism, which almost everybody with a working brain should know at this point. My reaction to this whole thing is pure schadenfreude and it is delicious.

We’ve watched the religious right erode the separation of church and state at every turn while complaining that Christianity is “oppressed” in this country. And now that they’ve forced the door open to allow their religion to sneak through the church/state wall, they’re pissed when other mainstream religions decide to do the same thing.

There’s a word for this sort of thing and that word is hypocrisy.

Since we evidently don’t live in a world where private schools remain funded by private tuition and private contributions, I hope all of Louisiana’s Muslims, Jews, Jains, Sikhs, Buddhists, Taoists, and whoever I’m forgetting line up and open a shit-ton of new schools using money provided by this voucher program and I hope they do it right next door to all the Evangelical schools.