No room for Theocracy in our legislature

Washington state Rep. Matt Shea is a Theocrat. He recently released a video admitting that he distributed a violent diatribe about “Biblical Basis for War.”

As the Washington State Representative of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, I condemn the document for its startling “us versus them” theocratic approach to governing.

His “4 Ways to know it’s time to fight” is thinking that a God is on one’s side. His “Organizational Structure for War” leaves no doubt that this is meant to be a guide to literal war, not figurative.

Shea gets these hideous ideas from a book written back when the wheelbarrow was considered high tech.

In defending biblical war, he misleadingly said that Supreme Court Justice Brewer, in Holy Trinity v. the United States, wrote “this is a Christian Nation” and Shea leaves it at that. But Brewer further explained himself by writing:

“But in what sense can it be called a Christian nation? Not in the sense that Christianity is the established religion or that people are in any matter compelled to support it. On the contrary, the Constitution specifically provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

“Numbers of our people profess other religions, and many reject all. In fact, the government as a legal organization is independent of all religions.”

Shea needs to denounce these radical, violent claims and to commit to upholding the American values he swore to defend and to keep state and church separate.