Louie Gohmert Thinks The Church-State ‘Wall Of Separation’ Is A ‘One Way Wall’

The physics of this thing should baffle anyone with even a basic grasp of logic. So, conversely, it makes perfect sense to Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX). Speaking for a World Net Daily presentation titled “Washington – A Man of Prayer,” a ridiculously misleading history of how George Washington was an obviously radical right-wing Christian (he wasn’t), Gohmert discussed the history of what’s now known as Statuary Hall inside the U.S. Capitol building.

With hypnotic New Age piano music playing in the background, Gohmert describes how, for a period of time, nondenominational Christian church services (for “all faiths of Christianity”) were held every Sunday inside the chamber, a room which also happened to be the original House of Representatives. He also mentions that Thomas Jefferson, while president, would attend Sunday services regularly there. In the broadest sense, this is true and we’ll come back to the propriety of such a thing in a moment.

Gohmert, to his credit, admits that Jefferson believed in a “wall of separation” between Church and State and that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment was that wall. From here, everything Gohmert says falls rapidly off the rails. Of course. Because he’s Gohmert.

If you’re someone like Gohmert, this is an extremely difficult reality to square away. So what do you do? Clearly, you deliberately abandon the laws of logic and physics to shoehorn your inaccurate nonsense into what you just yourself said about Jefferson’s wall. And if you’re Gohmert, your Chiclet-brain is perfectly adapted for ludicrous flights of cringe-inducing doofery. Yes, a sitting member of the U.S. Congress went on to suggest that the “wall of separation” meant that the “church would certainly play a role in the state.”

In Gohmert’s brain, not unlike Homer Simpson’s brain, illustrated by a donkey napping under a tree, “separation” doesn’t carry the same meaning we’ve all come to know: “a point, line, or means of division” and “an intervening space.” In other words, if two things are separate, they don’t touch each other. For example: the separation between Gohmert and reality. Jefferson wrote that a constitutional wall of separation prevents Church from interfering in the State and vice-versa. But somehow, to Gohmert, separation isn’t a separation, it’s a something else therefore it’s not separate at all, yet he still believes it’s both a wall and a separation.

It gets weirder… READ MORE

By: Bob Cesca

Bob Cesca is the managing editor at The Daily Banter (www.thedailybanter.com) and a Huffington Post contributor since 2005. He's worked in journalism since 1988 as a print writer/editor, a radio news anchor, a digital media columnist/editor, a book author and blogger. He's the co-host of the Bubble Genius Bob & Chez Show podcast and a Thursday regular on the syndicated Stephanie Miller Show. He's appeared on numerous other radio shows including the John Phillips Show and Geraldo Rivera Show in Los Angeles. Bob has been a commentator/analyst on the BBC (TV and radio), MSNBC, Current TV, CNN and Sky News. Following him on Twitter: @bobcesca_go