MOSSBACK MOUNTAIN, IOWA — Ohio Governor and 2016 Republican presidential candidate John Kasich raised several eyebrows this week when in the wake of the ISIS-led massacre in Paris, France the conservative suggested that as president, he would form a governmental agency designed to promote Judeo-Christian Values. Critics were quick to call this a direct assault on the First Amendment’s promise of a separation between church and state, specifically the passage of that says under no uncertain terms, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” But at a campaign rally this week, Kasich took time during his speech to address critics of his plan.
“First off, why do all these so-called highly educated liberals skip the first word of the First Amendment,” Kasich asked rhetorically. “It says Congress shall make no laws concerning religion, not the president. So as far as I’m concerned, I can just use some Executive Orders — and unlike Obama’s usurpation of power mine will be ordained by God himself and therefore will carry more weight than a secular Executive Order — and make it happen.” Kasich would later tell reporters he’s not a hypocrite for wanting to use executive powers even though conservatives like himself spent years raking Obama over the coals for any executive orders or actions he took because he’s a Republican and “Republicans just naturally know when they should issue a real, American executive order, like when Dick Nixon created the DEA with one.”
Kasich said that while his critics may compare his idea to the Taliban in Afghanistan or the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq forcing Islamic law on the people of those regions, those comparisons are off base because he’s “in favor of a kinder, gentler of Sharia.” When pressed later for details on what exactly he meant, Kasich rolled his eyes and told the reporter, “Christianity is just better than Islam, that’s why. Sure, they’re Abrahamic religions, and sure they both are arcane enough to contains some downright barbaric traditions and laws, and sure both are monotheistic religions that encourage you to take up war against those who would not accept your God as the one true God, but that’s where all the similarities end.”
“The bottom line here people is that my Department of Christianity would in no way violate the First Amendment,” Kasich said, “because there won’t be any punishments for people who don’t accept Judeo-Christian values as the only values worth living your life by. They’ll just be asked to wear a special little patch on their sleeves that denotes they are non-believers. Then, they’re easier to identify later…for no specific reason at all.”
Governor Kasich was one among the many red state and one blue state governor to openly reject the acceptance of Syrian refugees into their state. However, many scholars have pointed out that state governments have no right to reject immigrants because those issues and powers are reserved strictly for the Federal government. “Yeah, but if I’m president, we’ll bring the country back to believing in the Bible first and the Constitution second,” Kasich told one reporter after the rally ended, “because that’s how every good, clean, ammo-hoarding, Judeo-Christian American patriot looks at it. God and Jesus first; Constitution and all its guarantees of true equality no matter what Gods you do or don’t worship second.”