CAN’T FOLLOW CONSTITUTION? THEN RESIGN
A telling incident occurred in the Missouri governor’s race this month. After a hearing in the Western District Court of Appeals, Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, a Republican candidate for governor, “was asked by reporters whether he, as governor, would be able to defend reproductive rights if Missouri voters enshrine them in the Missouri Constitution next fall,” the local CBS news affiliate reported. His answer: “Anytime a statewide official is sworn in, we swear an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and of the state of Missouri.” He added: “If I cannot do that, then I would have to leave my position. I cannot swear an oath and then refuse to do what I’d said I would do. “I would have to quit,” he said. Ashcroft raises an interesting point. New House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, for example, said in a Fox News interview: “‘What does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun?’ I said, well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it — that’s my worldview. That’s what I believe, and so I make no apologies for it.”
Johnson swore an oath to a Constitution that includes a First Amendment that prohibits the establishment of religion. The Constitution bans slavery and cruel and unusual punishment; the Bible condones slavery and stoning, among other things. Which is his rule book: the Constitution or the Bible? He should tell us.
This is more than theoretical. The Supreme Court (for now) has ruled same-sex marriage is constitutionally protected. Johnson, however, makes no bones about his anti-gay bigotry. He has condemned homosexuality in print multiple times. Can he set aside his religious views and accept that gay marriage is the law of the land? His oath requires him to.
The question remains for him and others who cite the Bible as their “rule book”: Will they follow the Constitution when it’s in conflict with their religious views? If not, they should follow Ashcroft’s statement and resign. Officeholders might take an oath on the Bible (or other text), but they take an oath to the Constitution, which, unsurprisingly, contradicts the Bible in many significant respects. You cannot have two rule books if you are to abide by your oath.
Ashcroft and Johnson have been more candid than most, but, to a frightening degree, the Republican Party has become a vessel for white Christian nationalism, which seeks to impose “a worldview that claims the U.S. is a Christian nation and that the country’s laws should therefore be rooted in Christian values,” as NPR put it. That belief is the foundation for effectively obliterating the anti-establishment clause and for a host of views on immigration (the “great replacement theory”), abortion, gay rights, education and more.
All Americans are absolutely entitled to adhere to the worldview that the United States was founded as a Christian nation to defend Western values. However, when they take an oath of office to defend and protect a Constitution that is incompatible with that deeply held view, pluralistic democracy has a serious problem.
There are two ways to resolve the issue. Ashcroft presents one: Resign if you cannot put your religious views aside. The other is to admit that you must put those views aside to hold public office. When the issue is not evangelical Christianity, but rather John F. Kennedy’s Catholicism or Mitt Romney’s Mormonism, politicians have taken pains to assure voters that their religion would not dictate their actions in office. We should expect no less of today’s elected officials, including Johnson.