Public Expression of Religion Act

Late last month the House of Representatives passed a bill to intentionally make it a hardship for Americans to sue their government for unconstitutional sponsorship and promotion of religion. The Public Expression of Religion Act (PERA) passed the house 244-173, with 97% of Republicans supporting it and 87% of Democrats in opposition.

PERA was introduced in the House by Rep. John Hostettler (R-IN), the same guy behind a scheme in 2003 that would have withheld funds from the U.S. Marshals Service and any other agency charged with enforcing the decisions of U.S. District Courts if their decisions removed the words "Under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, or ordered a Ten Commandments monument to be taken out of the Alabama Capitol Building. If adopted by the Senate and signed into law by President George Duplicitous Bush, PERA would overturn current law that gives courts discretionary authority to award reasonable attorneys' fees if it’s found that a government entity violated the Constitutional separation of religion and state principle.

Referring to court awards of attorney fees to the ACLU for their successful legal challenges in several establishment clause cases, Hostettler said his bill “will protect us from being the victims of this assault on our religious liberties.”

Huh? If it wasn’t for the fact that Christian fundamentalists in this country unmercifully hound their communities into displaying religious artifacts on publicly-owned properties, no one would be suing those government entities and no one, therefore, would be awarded attorney fees. Not willing to pay the fine? Don’t break the law. Seems simple enough to me.

Although I don’t at all agree with many of the votes cast by my congressional representative (Chet Edwards, D-TX), he does have the right position on PERA:

"Mr. Speaker, let's be clear -- there's nothing benign about this bill. This bill makes it more difficult to enforce the First Amendment to the Constitution and the very words thereof designed to protect the religious freedom of every American."

God’s senator and the religious right’s favorite 2008 presidential hopeful, Sam Brownback, R-KS, has introduced a version of this bill (S. 3696) in the Senate. Although I haven’t yet checked to see if he has a public position on PERA, I suspect Republican Texas Senator John Violence-Against-Judges-Is-Understandable Cornyn would be in full support of it. Hopefully, the majority of senators will readily recognize that PERA is far from being intelligently designed and will toss it into the garbage can where it belongs.