The United States is a secular country.

This should not be a controversial statement, but there are those who assert that the U.S. is a Christian country for Christian people. They’re called Christian nationalists, and they reject the concept of the separation of church and state. In fact, they hope to use the power of the government to benefit their religion and to inhibit other faiths and atheism.

A core aspect of this Christian nationalism is a fundamental misunderstanding of U.S. history. Its narrative says the United States was founded on Judeo-Christianity, the Ten Commandments form the basis of American law and the nation’s framers were divinely inspired in their creation of the Constitution.

This telling of history is just wrong. The First Amendment expressly forbids Congress from “respecting the establishment of a religion.” In 1796, the Senate ratified the Treaty of Tripoli, which included a provision stating, “the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” Nevertheless, the myth of a Christian America persists.

Christian nationalism within the general population is concerning, but it’s much worse when it also appears in the government. Here in Louisiana, we have that exact problem. Several state representatives have pre-filed House bills for the upcoming legislative session which promote Christian nationalism. Some are obvious, others less so, but they all pose a terrible threat to the separation of church and state.

HB8, by Republican Reps. Dodie Horton of Haughton and Jack McFarland of Jonesboro, is an obvious example. If passed, every single classroom in every single public primary, secondary and postsecondary campus must display the words “In God We Trust.” To be clear, not just every building — every room in every building would display the motto.

The phrase is the national motto, but that fact masks a more complicated history. The motto was not officially adopted until the Eisenhower administration and was deeply wrapped up in the culture-politics of the Cold War. It was explicitly intended to harken back to a Christian heritage as a foil to the Soviets’ atheism. This allusion to a Christian nation was wrong in the 1950s, and it is still a problem today.

HB68 by Rep. Valerie Hodges, R-Denham Springs, would authorize public school courses in the “history and literature of the Bible,” if passed.

On the surface, this seems benign. After all, understanding the role of the Bible in literature and history is useful for an educated student. 

Hodges’ bill also says the proposed courses are to “not endorse, promote, favor, disfavor, or show hostility toward any particular religion or any nonreligious perspective.” 

But the main issue with Christian nationalism is not the “Christian” part, rather the “nationalism” part. Hodges’s bill references the supposed impact of the Bible on “law, history, government… customs, morals, values, and culture,” but the Bible isn’t nearly as influential to these as the bill implies. 

Christianity, the Bible and Christians have undoubtedly played significant roles, both good and bad, in our nation’s history, but it’s easy to exaggerate their impact. Hodges’s bill would exacerbate the fundamental misunderstanding of American history. She even admits this as a goal when she said that learning about the Bible is a “prerequisite” to understanding the country’s “morals and public policy” — as if morals and politics needed Christianity for development.

HB466, also by Rep. Horton, and HB81 by Rep. Raymond Crews (R-Bossier City) are both less obvious in their Christian influences. Neither mention the Bible, Christianity or even God, but both are entirely inspired by certain notions of morality.

Horton’s bill is her latest attempt at “don’t say gay”-style legislation. It would ban almost any mention or discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in all public-school classes and extracurriculars, kindergarten through 12th grade. Additionally, it would allow faculty to ignore a student’s preferred pronouns for their “religious or moral convictions.”

Crews’ bill would require that schools receive parental permission to call a student by a name other than that on their birth certificate and to refer to them by pronouns not corresponding to their sex at birth.

These conservative ideas of gender, sex and attraction are not rooted in biology, psychology or sociology. They are wholly drawn from a specific interpretation of Christianity. To implement these policies would be to functionally institutionalize specific religious morals—and harm many young Louisianians in the process.

Horton, McFarland, Hodges and Crews are trying to inject their religion into state law.

This is flatly unconstitutional and morally dubious, but the quality of these bills does not determine whether they will pass. They very well could become law. In the near future, you might see “In God We Trust” scribbled on a piece of printer paper and taped to the wall of a lecture hall here at LSU.

That may seem almost comical, but Christian nationalism is nothing to laugh about. It’s a dangerous threat to the identity of our country. It’s alive and well in our state legislature, and very soon it may be further entrenched in our schools and universities.

Matthew Pellittieri is an 18-year-old history and political science freshman from Ponchatoula.