America was NOT founded as a Christian nation

Contrary to MAGA's beliefs, America was NOT founded as a Christian nation

The United States of America was NOT founded as a Christian nation. The Founders were quite clear about that. In the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli, ratified unanimously by the Senate just a decade after the Constitution went into effect, U.S. leaders said “the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion” and has “no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of” Muslims. They went on to say that “no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between” the U.S. and Tripoli.

Thomas Jefferson, the key author of the Declaration of Independence, and James Madison of Virginia, the key thinker behind the Constitution, both wrote explicitly about the importance of keeping the government separate from religion. Jefferson wrote that “religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship.”

In 1785, Madison explained that what was at stake in keeping the state and religion separate was not just religion, but also representative government itself. The establishment of one religion over others attacked a fundamental human right—an unalienable right—of conscience. If lawmakers could destroy the right of freedom of conscience, they could destroy all other unalienable rights, including those enumerated in the Declaration of Independence and codified in the Constitution. This is exactly what we're seeing Trump and his evil regime attempting to do now.

Replacing Americans’ civic identity with Christian nationalism destroys that vitally important understanding of the role of citizens in a democracy. Instead, it demands that Americans do as they are told, turning them into subjects. The twisted MAGA mindset sees overturning democracy for Trump as obeying the Lord. But blindly obeying authority has never been the story of America, and it never will be. From its origins in resistance to the British government, the story of America has been the opposite of obeying. It has been about questioning, debating, criticizing leaders, and working to build “a more perfect Union,” as the Framers charged us to do.

Defy Trump. Defy MAGA. Defy authoritarianism. Defy these traitors to America.