Is the USA a Christian nation?

Some folks, if they have their way, would have you think so. Sadly, a small group of vociferous right-wing talebangelists would LOVE to remake the US into a theocracy (and stunningly, they've actually made inroads toward that goal), and rewrite American history to reflect the lie.

PZ Myers recently highlighted the issue on Pharyngula and pointed to a good dissection of the issue on Daily Kos. In that article, the folks at Kos linked to Liars for Jesus.

Who voted how on HR 847 ("Recognizing the importance of Christmas and the Christian faith"):

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll1143.xml

How did your elected representative vote? Ours, Lamar Smith, R-TX voted "yea". Sigh. Go figure ...

Spineless frakking politicians.

Whatever happened to the America of the Founding Fathers?

"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."

-- James Madison

"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own."

-- Thomas Jefferson

"I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!"

--John Adams

"The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the Sun, in which they put a man whom they call Christ, in the place of the Sun, and pay him the same adoration which was originally paid to the Sun."

-- Thomas Paine

"The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man."

-- Thomas Jefferson