The Freedom From Religion Foundation calls the defeat of an Oklahoma resolution declaring “Christ is King” a win for reason and our secular Constitution.
House Concurrent Resolution 1013, which passed the House last month, declared that “Christ is King” of Oklahoma and asserted “the sovereignty of Jesus Christ as a source of hope, unity, and moral guidance.” Ironically, while clearly privileging Christianity, the resolution claimed to “affirm the freedom of its citizens to express their deeply held beliefs.”
Although the resolution quickly made its way through the Oklahoma House, it ran into a roadblock as it crossed over to the Senate. The Senate leadership recently announced that it would not entertain the resolution, all but ensuring its demise. Senate President Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton stated, “I don’t need a resolution to bolster my Christianity.”
The resolution’s primary Senate sponsor, Shane Jett, laughably said in a press release that this resolution “neither establishes religion nor infringes on individual rights” but instead was a “stance for freedom and faith.” The resolution in actuality would have sent a clear message to all Oklahomans who practice different faiths or none at all that they are not welcome in Oklahoma. HCR 1013 would have further emboldened the growing Christian nationalist movement in Oklahoma and around the country that is actively trying to dismantle safeguards that separate religion and government. The resolution would also have turned non-Christians, including the 26 percent of Oklahomans who identify as nonreligious, into second-class citizens.
HCR 1013 flew in the face of America’s foundational secular principles established in the godless Constitution, whose First Amendment ensures that citizens are free to believe or disbelieve as they like. The FFRF Action Fund, FFRF’s advocacy arm, mobilized opposition, alerting advocates and urging Senate leadership to reject this unconstitutional endorsement of religion.
“The Founders of our secular country threw out the monarchs, and were proudly first among nations to place sovereignty not in a divinity, but in ‘We the People,’” comments FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “The only way to protect freedom of religion is to ensure the government is free from religion, leaving religion as a matter of individual conscience. We’re so pleased that fealty to this constitutional principle won out.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with more than 42,000 members nationwide, including hundreds of members in Oklahoma. FFRF’s purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between church and state, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
