The best way to fight MAGA in the next four years is by giving them what they claim they want – especially on religious freedom. Take them at their word, and act accordingly.
For starters, let’s take the case of Oklahoma Schools Superintendent Ryan Walters. He’s just mandated that Oklahoma teachers show a video in which he prays for Donald Trump.
Goody! Prayer is back in school! So as I said, take them at their word. Push for prayers in school that the Christian Right may find hard to swallow.
Clearly, if students are to pray, they need accommodations, right? Every school with a Muslim population of any size, even one kid, needs to provide a room where that student can unfurl a prayer rug, face Mecca, and perform any of the five required prayers of the Muslim faith that occur during school hours. Let’s take that obvious requirement all of the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, if need be. How fun would it be to see how Justice Samuel Alito squares this particular circle? No matter how the case turns out, we’ll have years of embarrassing MAGA. They’re shameless; let’s give them a chance to prove it to swing voters.
Next, students obviously have the right to pray now. Out loud. Right? That’s any student. How wonderful, how in keeping with the First Amendment for Hindu children to chant to Krishna, right? Isn’t that what America and the First Amendment are all about? Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, a MAGA Catholic, stated: “If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses.” (Actually, Hammurabi’s Code predates the Ten commandments by 1,000 years, but when have Republicans been good at math?)
The important thing is that Landry claimed that the Protestant version of the Ten Commandments display would do no harm to children of other faiths. Why not, you ask? Let’s ask Landry. “I did not know that the Ten Commandments was such a bad way for someone to live their life,” Landry said. “Really and truly, I don’t see what the whole big fuss is about. … What I would say to those parents if those posters are in the school and they find them so vulgar, tell the child not to look at them.”
Well, that convinces me! There’s no reason why Hindu students should not be able to softly chant their Maha Mantras in schools. After all, the students who are not Hindu don’t have to listen if they find them so vulgar. Right, Governor Landry? (BTW – you can listen to the Hari Krishna Bhajans here. They’re actually pretty, and pretty soothing. A win-win! Religious freedom and mindfulness!)
So that’s the solution. Give Christian Nationalists so much Freedom of Religion that they’ll get bored with religious freedom. And if they object, we — and all Americans — can watch them squirm. There’s no price on that spectacle.
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