Our first legislative news for the year isn’t the typical bill to allow creationism in the science classes of state schools. It’s something far more … fundamental. Fox News reports: Miss. lawmakers want Bible to become official state book. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us:
Lawmakers in Mississippi are trying to pass a couple of bills that would make the Bible the official book of the state. Two bills are being filed — one by State Rep. William Arnold (R) — pastor of a nondenominational Christian Church. Another by State Reps. Tom Miles (D) and Michael Evans (D). Miles and Evans told the AP [Associated Press] their bill has promise of bipartisan support from more than 20 of their colleagues.
Wowie — two bible bills! Unfortunately, the Fox story doesn’t give the numbers of the bills, nor do any of the other news stories we checked on this subject. To make it worse, the Mississippi legislature’s website can’t be searched by subject — the bill number is required. So we went to the legislature’s pages for the geniuses behind these bills. Alas, those pages don’t list the bills sponsored by the lawmakers, so there’s no way we can find them. However, we can provide some information about the men behind these proposed laws. Let’s take them one at a time.
Here’s the page for William Tracy Arnold. He’s a Republican who has been in the legislature since 2012. He was educated at Logos Bible College, and his occupation is Senior Pastor of The Vineyard Church.
This is the page for Tom Miles. He’s a Democrat who has been in the legislature since 2012. He was educated at Mississippi State University, and his occupation is Business Owner.
And here’s the page for Michael T. Evans. He’s a Democrat who has been been in the legislature since 2012. He was educated at the Mississippi Fire Academy, and his occupation is Fireman and Farmer.
That’s all the background we can find, so let’s return to Fox News:
Miles told the AP on Monday he is not trying to force religion on anyone. “The Bible provides a good role model on how to treat people,” Miles said. “They could read in there about love and compassion.”
Yes — and other things too, like the planet-killing Flood. Here’s one more excerpt:
Miss., also known as “the magnolia state,” is in fact the most religious state in the county, according to a Gallup Poll. 59 percent of Mississippians consider themselves “very religious.”
We took a look at the Mississippi Constitution, to see if these bills might conflict with it. Article 3 (Bill of Rights), Section 18 is titled “Freedom of Religion.” It says:
No religious test as a qualification for office shall be required; and no preference shall be given by law to any religious sect or mode of worship; but the free enjoyment of all religious sentiments and the different modes of worship shall be held sacred. The rights hereby secured shall not be construed to justify acts of licentiousness injurious to morals or dangerous to the peace and safety of the state, or to exclude the Holy Bible from use in any public school of this state.
That’s a tad ambiguous, but all is not lost. Mississippi is one of 37 (or maybe 38) states to have enacted a version of the Blaine Amendment. In the Mississippi constitution it’s in Article 8 (Education) Section 208 (Control of funds by religious sect; certain appropriations prohibited), which says:
No religious or other sect or sects shall ever control any part of the school or other educational funds of this state; nor shall any funds be appropriated toward the support of any sectarian school, or to any school that at the time of receiving such appropriation is not conducted as a free school.
That’s very nice, but it’s limited to schools — unlike the way other states make it applicable to all spending. It doesn’t seem to prohibit the bible from being the state’s official book. If either of these two bills passes, we have no idea what the courts will do, even if there’s also a First Amendment challenge to such a law.
The legislative session began on 06 January, and it’s scheduled to adjourn on 05 April. We’ll keep watching. Stay tuned to this blog.
Addendum: We’ve been informed that the bill “To designate the Holy Bible as the State Book Of Mississippi” died in committee on Feb 3.
Copyright © 2015. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
I’m sure Mississippians will be gratified to have a collection of bronze age myths as their official state book. Now they can work on their state motto. Something like “Leading the charge into the middle ages!”
Eh, those “official state [general noun]” laws are worthless. My thinking is that if preparing, presenting and passing these bills keeps them from passing actual legislation, it’s a net positive given how the state’s been governed in the past few years.
Aren’t there any Mississippi authors that have written books that would be better ideas? Despite all The Sound and The Fury coming from that state, I can’t think of any. As I Lay Dying someday in the future, maybe I’ll be able to come up with A Fable that has won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction or something.
Go, Mississippi
Words and Music by Houston Davis
Verse:
States may sing their songs of praise
With waving flags and hip-hoo-rays,
Let cymbals crash and let bells ring
‘Cause here’s one song I’m proud to sing.
Choruses:
Go, Mississippi, keep rolling along,
Go, Mississippi, you cannot go wrong,
Go, Mississippi, we’re singing your song,
M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I
Go, Mississippi, you’re on the right track,
Go, Mississippi, and this is a fact,
Go, Mississippi, you’ll never look back,
M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I
Go, Mississippi, straight down the line,
Go, Mississippi, ev’rything’s fine,
Go, Mississippi, it’s your state and mine,
M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I
Go, Mississippi, continue to roll,
Go, Mississippi, the top is the goal,
Go, Mississippi, you’ll have and you’ll hold,
M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I
Go, Mississippi, get up and go,
Go, Mississippi, let the world know,
That our Mississippi is leading the show,
M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I
abeastwood suggests Mississippians
Google Translate gives a proper pig-Lation version of that: Custodia ducit in medium aevum. But that feels a long way from their current Virtute et Armis (“By Valor and Arms”)
So how about: Disco’tute in Armis (“Discoveroids Armed and Dangerous”)
Pig-Lation? Guess that’s pig-English for “pig-Latin”…
How about a simple retroversus! backwards!
@ Mark Germano: Hearty commendations for seeking out literary merit in Mississippi!
And some can indeed be found–outside the state legislature, which alas is just so much blight in sawdust.. To those state politicians, one can only say, go down, bogus!, and then conduct a solemn requiem for a pun…
I found this, the “Mississippi Legislative Bill Status System.” Clicking on “2015 Regular Session” at the top gets you to an option for “List of Measures by Author”; then you can find “William Tracy Arnold” and, finally, his HB 386. The entire thing reads:
I can’t find any similar bill by either Miles or Evans; I suppose it could be that they withdrew theirs, thinking one stupid thing at a time was enough.
The Mississippi constitution says, with italics added: “[t]he free enjoyment of all religious sentiments and the different modes of worship shall be held sacred. ”
Isn’t that a case of the fallacy of affirming the consequent, or begging the question, or something like that? Or maybe it’s just the result of plain god lust being performed in public?
Thanks, aturingtest.
SC- very welcome.
From my local newspaper, the Biloxi [Mississippi] Sun-Herald, comes this:
That’s all well and good; but the pertinent question here is, what does the symbol stand for? “Teddy bear,” “milk,” and “the Bible”- one of those things is so not like the others.
aturingtest quotes his local newspaper: “Mississippi lawmakers over the years have designated several other symbols”
Since you live there, you could suggest that they designate an organ from the human body as the official state organ. I suggest that a certain sphincter would be an excellent symbol.
SC:
Ha! Good idea; and, of course, I’ll sugar the pill by telling them, “hey, it’s just symbolic! Nobody’s forcing you to actually be sphincters.” I’m sure they’ll understand the point that it means just as much as their Bible…
Normally when a state adopts an official state symbol, the item in question has something to do with that state. For example Michigan’s Petosky stones are something found only in Michigan.
Mississippi adopting the Bible is pure religious pandering, the Bible has nothing at all to do with Mississippi. It might be constitutional though.
aturingtest asserts:
How so? Sounds to me like a list of things given to children, as comfort at bedtime.
winewithcats, have you even read the book of Judges? Not good bedtime reading.
Fox News: “Miss., also known as “the magnolia state,” is in fact the most religious state in the county,[sic] according to a Gallup Poll.”
Good ol’ Fox News. I checked; that’s how it is at Fox’s website. Obviously, the reporter meant “country”, not “county”, but it speaks to the quality of their editing at Fox. You get the feeling that you’re the first person to read it.
“We repirt; you deside.”
winewithcats, to add to dweller42’s comment, read Leviticus 20 to your kids at bedtime and let us know how it goes.
“No religious test as a qualification for office shall be required; and no preference shall be given by law to any religious sect or mode of worship; but the free enjoyment of all religious sentiments and the different modes of worship shall be held sacred.”
Let someone suggest making the koran the state book. I’m sure they also frown very much on the “no religious test” words, i.e., everybody better swear on the bible. But wasn’t there another state that tried this bible book trick?
“…or to exclude the Holy Bible from use in any public school of this state.”
They do have a school voucher system, but I don’t know if it’s any better than Jindal’s milk the public schools state.
I suppose just using part of the Bible would be unacceptable. I was think of “Absalom, Absalom,” which does have a Mississippi connection.
retiredsciguy, winewithcats, dweller42’s
Revelation should be good bedtime reading.
Perhaps Mississippi could mandate that all books be written on stone tablets, like the original Ten Commandments, or parchment scrolls.
Ah, yes, TomS. That resonates.
I was raised as a Revelation kid. My parents’ favorite radio preacher (Herbert W. Armstrong) taught that, when read properly, that last book of the bible prophesied Germany would rise again, and German soldiers would overrun the country and take American children out of their beds. They would throw babies into the air and catch them on their bayonets. Bigger children like me they would merely hang on meat hooks.
I spent many an evening, before drifting off into troubled sleep, huddled under blankets not breathing. I was practicing for the invasion, hoping I would be able to fool soldiers into thinking there was no one in the bed.
Eric Lipps, we should ignore the original medium. The proper way to display the Ten Commandments today is to make careful arrangements of colored stone chips and ceramic tiles and cement them in place.
After all, the Commandments are mosaic law.
Retired Prof says: “After all, the Commandments are mosaic law.”
Eeeuuw!
@Retired Prof: Wow, I haven’t heard of Herbert W. Armstrong in a long time. When I was a graduate student, several of us got a subscription (free) to his magazine, The Plain Truth. Almost every issue would have an article about “evilution”, and we’d read passages aloud at lunch and say “what an ignorant bull** artist this clown is!” It was good fun.
winewithcats:
Well, I was thinking more along the lines of “nobody’s ever wanted to pass laws to run people’s lives based on teddy bears or milk.” They’re acting as if the Bible is just some neutral book with no more meaning than any other, and no more symbolic value than the magnolia; they know full well this isn’t so.
Herbert W. Armstrong – that takes me back! Sometime in the ’50s, I listened to one of his programs on Radio Luxembourg (yes, sound radio) and wrote to his contact address to say I disagreed with him. I was rewarded with a free subscription to his magazine, which was a preview of 1990s bad website design – changes of font, size, italicisation, bolding, colour etc. practically every word, sometimes within a word. It told me a lot, though, about the USA back then. It’s a pity it seems to have gone downhill ever since.