Oklahoma in a land that time forgot. Oh well, time seems to have moved on faster than Oklahoma does. Here, it wasn't yet twenty sixteen when Oklahoma residents said we would like to not be staying in the garden of Eden or at the divine creations. These people are saying, and we would rather not be funding the Christianity. So what are they doing this time? They're trying again, only
they're trying to go back even further. Oklahoma once again doing Christianity the only way that it can do Christianity, and that is sneakily and through the back door. This is an article all about how Oklahoma legislators are trying to push through indirect funding of religious buildings. This will primarily be Christian buildings, and hemat Matter says it better than us all on his friendly atheist blog from the twenty second of January, doesn't he tell on? Oh yeah, he definitely did this.
Okay, So for those people that don't know what the how we're talking about. So there is a States senator that really, really, really really loves his Bible. He loves it so much and he wants all the kids to also love his Bible.
As much as he loves it.
And he wants to take money away from public education and funded into private schools. And this way there will be religious teachings within these schools. That's not why we have a seculary government. And he's being super steaky about it because he wants there wasn't a There was a clause in the state of the Oklahoma Amendment that says that you could not use public funds for private or private education. If you want to go take direct direct or in direct. Yes, it was direct and.
Direct and in direct. Well, this lunatic wants to do and I call him a lunatic here. There is nobody caninology that is desired here, but he wants to remove bedlam over here. But that's Oklahoma for you. Anyway. What we have here is we have a man who doesn't understand how things were. He wants to remove the words indirect from the clause that stopped him from getting a Catholic charter school. That's the long and the short of it here. And Oklahoma is about as red as the
top that Aaron is wearing. So thinking of this and thinking that voters in gloom they must be all gung home for this, Yes, gung ho, you'd say, well, actually no. They told him to sod off last time in twenty sixteen, which was quite refreshing. At the height of you know, the forty fifth president being elected and the first viable female candidate getting defeated and his party getting control of the House and Senate. Nationally, voters in Oklahoma went, nah, we don't want thisubbish.
Fifty seven forty three percent.
It was small. It was twelve points. It's two points.
That's that's pretty big all things considered, I would I would say that's a pretty big disparity.
So the question for the payer of you here, if you were living in Oklahoma, Aaron, what would you be doing.
If I live in Oklahoma, I would be calling up my representatives and say, knock it off this bill right now. Unfortunately, this bill is only in committee, so it hasn't really made it to the floor for open debate and actual passage. But if if I was in Oklahoma, I would be calling up my representatives and say this. I like the car constitution the way it is. I like that our constitution says that we cannot fund churches, either directly or indirectly.
This is a good thing. So please make sure that this does not leave committee if at all possible, and if it does, it should be soundly defeated. We do not want religion in our government because what religion does is religion makes thought, thinking and believing things crimes. Right, one of the Ten commandments makes thinking certain things of crime.
And that's why you do not cover thy neighbors ass that's right, depending on my neighbors asses, that shall not cover thy neighbors. I feel that's why I am against religion.
So I'm against religion in our government because of the thought crime.
Do you cover thy neighbors ass?
It depends on the ass.
And how you're coverting your time assuming So hello, if you a wonderful resident of Oklahoma, what would you be doing? I we're not talking like you know, the standard staff writing letters phony people. What would you be doing personally in this context?
So, well, I'd be I'd be streaming into a pillow. But I already do that anyways at all times, but I would there would not Just I'm I like to make stinks, So when I see ship like this, I tend to want to rally other people and make that make stinks. Because if you if they voted back in twenty sixteen that they were like, no ah, we like this, we like this separation of church and state. I'd be like, hey, remember we did this.
Let's do it again. We're going to do it again.
Irish to tell people like, hey, keep an eye on this, motherfucker.
If this is very Irish. This does. As an Irish citizen myself, I remember there was this thing called the Treaty of Lisbon in two thousand and eight and two thousand and nine. We also had it with the Mars Strict Treaty and the and the Treaty of Nice as well. So us in Ireland we we have to vote on a lot of things to change our constitution. And they went, nah, we don't really want this treaty. So what do they do? Eighteen months later they went, do it again, please give
us the right answer. That's basically what they did. In two thousand and we went back to the post two thousand and nine, In two thousand and four, we went back to the public of two thousand and five, and in nineteen ninety one we went back to the policies. In nineteen ninety two, because you know, we've got given the wrong answer, So, here are some concessions to you
sweeten the deal. Blah blah blah. But that kind of feels how it is here you go, your the wrong answer the first time, give us a different answer this time. And where does that actually stop? And does this, in your opinion, make a fart of the believability of the sensibilities and structures of the state law itself?
Aaron, Well, it's just it's I'm not sure the law is what we wanted to be and what we make it. Right, we pass laws and we enforce laws, and so the laws can be whatever we decide. It's all made up, right. The laws get to be what we want them to be. And it's something the people of Voklahoma. Do they want this to be the law? Do they want their public money, their taxes, to go indirectly towards towards churches?
And what does that actually mean? When you hear that? What do you immediately think?
I have no idea what he means. To be honest, the oracle the article says indirectly means they can fund buildings, or it's kind of vague because the constitution right now says directly or indirectly, And he wants to amend it to take out the word indirectly, so you can indirectly help a church. So maybe it's funny.
It means is so what this means is, let's say Helen, where's a dog collar? And she has her congregation at the Church of Helen every week. Why I ask, the self appointed fund giver of Oklahoma cannot give dog collar wearing Helen any money. But Aaron works for an organization that is not a religious organization, but they work out of the same building that Helen does. So I give money to Aaron, and Aaron then gives the money to Helen.
That's how you get round the directness of this. So Aaron runs his nice community group in the back rooms of the church, and Helen charges a fee for that. That's indirect funding, and that's not allowed. You might think, well, what's the harm in that? What's the problem with that. Here's the problem with that. It's because it gives an unfair promotion to organizations to take the piss. Oh you're a builder that wants to build on this site, what do you want to do? I want to build the
community center. Oh, how wonderful for you. Every Sunday we're going to fill it up with a load of people and somebody wearing a dog collar to talk from this book as well. Oh that's wonderful. You can do that because of the community funding aspects that we're doing. That's indirect funding. But you've just built a church with it. And this is the idiocy of what we're doing here.
The law is written in the Constitution of Oklahoma in a very specific way to stop us starting around here, stop off the series because people, unless you nail down the jelly, and that's what you're doing here, You're nailing down the jelly here, someone's going to find a way to drive a coach horses through and raise the America's Cup and you can't have that. So what we have to say to people like this website quite loudly, is bogger off.
Yeah, so this this isn't It seems like the person that's writting this seems to think that the only religion is Christianity, right, like he What would this person feel if a religion he doesn't agree with starts to get money? Are they going to do? Are they going to want that?
And then cut your I'll drag you back here to articles we've done before on the Church of Satanism, the Church of Satanism apply for some indirect funding. Do you think that the man sponsoring this would go yes, would happily give them some money. No?
I accluely think that. That's my point, right, That's my point is if we gave money to the Church of the the Church of Satan, the Satanic temple sorry, or a mosque or a synagogue or any of that nature, what would his reaction be would he still would he agree with that or not? I have a tendency to think that what he really wants to do is just fund Christian things, and that's not Christian he's going to be against because that's usually what people like this think.
And that's the whole reason. And it doesn't have to do with non Christian religions. It can also be different sex within Christianity. What happens when a sex you don't agree with in Christianity wants to get money, you still want to give them money.
That's the whole reason.
That's one of the reasons where we try to keep religion out of our government and keep our government secular is so we don't have these stupid pissing matches between dogmas and religions and beliefs.
So getting down to brass tax here. Hello, Yes, what's the motivation behind it? Not superficial keypants more wart, what's the actual motivation behind this you thing?
It's Christian national shit as it always is. It is to force the state to adhere to THEO someone that wants a theocracy. He so, I am not a miss of this gentleman's name, Senator Dan Dana Prido. Just everybody tape, just remember that.
Yeah, Priato, I don't care, do I care? I pronounced it correctly now? I E t O p r I E t O. We're not. We're not being ignorant here in any way, shape or form. We're just struggling with the pronunciation because we don't know the gentleman's ethnicity. And as a result of that, there are many ways that you could pronounce this name.
I pronounce things phonetically. That's how I read them. So that's me anyway, regardless of my pronunciation of this gentleman's name. He he's not thinking of the broader context as like Aaron brought up about like other religions do they get the same funding? He wants his special book and because he really really loves this guy dad, and he wants other people to really love his guy Daddy. And he knows that in doctrination works. And I find it really funny that he has to do like this, like sneaky
sneaky stuff. When aren't you, like, as a Christian is supposed to be honest, can't you just be transparent about like what the hell you're doing? No, you can't, because if he directly said to you know, the voting populace that in drag means I want to take that is south so I can go around the back way and make sure money's going to private schools.
Here's the next question for you. Do you think that there's a viable argument to be made that if you were to change this, it would render the whole thing moot because you could technically include in your definition of religion those people who are irreligious, those who are anti religious, and dare I say, people like ourselves who have no religion whatsoever, because the broad definition of a religion has to include those who don't ascribe to that religion in
any way, shape or form, or any religion for that matter. So Aaron Helen, how do you see the end point of this If this is to go forwards and it is just church after church after church, but then some bright spark a few years later goes right, means that we can fund anything we like.
Well, I think it's I think it's it's troubling because it starts a slippery slope of funny religion. So first that the alteration could be indirect, and then the next alteration is direct, right.
And then and then the next alteration is only only and then who's gonna who's gonna win whoever, whatever religion is in the majority, and then whatever religion is, the majority is gonna have that power and they're not gonna let go of that power.
Power given is really hard to take away. And so
that's that's where my worry is of this. This passes is gonna it's just gonna give more power to the already majority religion in that state, and other people that don't have that power, that aren't part of that religion, Atheists, uh, made, the members of the Satanic Temple, uh, Muslims and other religions they're they're not gonna have any say anymore because the money talks and whoever's got the most power and the most representation in the government is going to is gonna win.
So yeah, I'm a clined degree and I'm also concerned that because it's indirect, I want and my concern is that if we're if the state is mostly Christian, that the indirect funding, who's going to oversee where the money is going and it is going to be honest?
Because that's another.
Thing we have to consider too, because if people have motivations where they don't want, like the Satanic temple or a Jewish synagogue or whatever, to get certain funding, they can redirect it, or they cannot get a certain percentage.
They can cook books.
So like as Aaron said, like there's a slippery slope here that I would like because this is direct and indirect, that is a clear distinction to say no. And if we start you know, changing, and I know the laws are all up, I understand that, but I do under the reason why we have the establishments clause is so the slight stuff like this does not happen. But the thing is, though, is that it's now happening, you know,
more and more. That's what we keep talking about on this damn show and it's just one of those things that and I. But it's also a little bit frustrating is the fact that he preto prido.
Whatever, the senator, the state senator, the senator.
He's kind of banking on the members of you know, his constituents to not know what direct and indirect means when it comes to what it comes to funding.
So here's a question, flip this on its head. Why should we stop this? Why should we It's free speech. You can believe what you want to believe. Money and the way it is distributed is a form of free speech. Why is this such a bad thing?
Well, I don't think. I think there should be regulation over a money, how much it gets spent, where it gets spent, when it comes to the government and things of that nature. Because we are seeing right now that whoever has the most money wins, and whoever has the most money wins. That means you've got to regulate where that money gets spent. And if does that makes sense?
Really no, I don't really know. It doesn't make any sense to me.
The reason why I don't want this to happen because it's schools. That's my issue, because I don't like I don't if I'm sending if I was living in Oklahoma, Okay, and I'm sending my child school and the charter school gets more funding than the public school because that indirect funding has a preference for the religious charter school.
That's a problem.
And that's my issue because if we're going to start distributing funds and we're going to start like doing sort of like a ranking, I would prefer that the school that's teaching the about a super special book and his super special sky Daddy and he wants other kids to learn about a super special sky day. That's fine, but then you do it privately.
I went to Catholic school.
My parents pay for me to go Clatter school when.
I was a child.
That was fine. Did I enjoy it? No, it was terrible.
I can tell you stories.
But I got a good Friday off, like we got religious holidays off. That was cool. So I have this just leads to a whole bunch of problems. And this is just stuff that I'm just like, stuff that's just popping into my brain over like if you think about it for more than two seconds.
So, Oklahoma nationally ranked number forty nine in education in the United States. Oklahoma one of the most Christian places in America. Is this just free speech and you money being free speech or is this an absolute affront Establishment clause. If you were in Oklahoma, what would you be doing? Let us know below right now