Rick Perry and the Right's Contention of U.S. Founded as a Christian Nation

Rick Perry, as part of his flirtation with the Republican base in preparation to run for President in 2012, called on leaders to join him in Houston next month for a day of Prayer and Fasting.  In response to this, many on the right point to the U.S. as being founded as a Christian Nation as justification for such a proclamation from a constitutionally bound public servant. In reality, one look at the men we consider our Founding Fathers tells a different story.

This generation of thinkers fed off the energy of enlightenment philosophy, where men such as Locke, Voltaire and Montesquieu wrote about man being able to discern his place in the world around him through the use of critical thought.  For many ages Europe found itself embroiled in wars which centered on which religion one followed.  In England this was no different, Catholic and Anglican factions fought for years as to who would control the fate of the nation.  This is party why the U.S was founded as a secular nation which respected all religions yet would not endorse one or make religious affiliation a test for public office (Yes Herman Cain, you would be constitutionally barred from requiring Muslim-Americans to take a special loyalty oath as test for public trust).  The First Amendment and later through the Fourteenth Amendment, the Federal Government and States were prohibited from establishing official religions.

If you want further proof, look no further then a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to Horatio Spafford in March of 1814: " In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot ... they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for their purpose"

The Republicans have fanatically courted the Christians, especially through the Bible Belt, through the use of coded language meant to goad them into voting for the Republican Candidate.  In recent times the same Republicans, elected partially on the strength of the voting in the bible belt have attacked public education and these maps might show why:

The greatest concentration of those with the least education sits in the bible belt, an area that is quite reliably Republican leaning, even thought Republican economic policy ignores the economic circumstances for the vast majority living there.

The Republicans must attack education, because the greater the level of education the less of a chance that they will blindly follow something rather than question and examine the world around themselves.