Christine O'Donnell questions separation of church & state
October 19, 2010 11:35 AM   Subscribe

"Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?" [Christine] O'Donnell asked him. When Coons responded that the First Amendment bars Congress from making laws respecting the establishment of religion, O'Donnell asked: You're telling me that's in the First Amendment?"
posted by livejamie (46 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: LOLCRAYZEE thread is fun for co-hating but otherwise pretty thin on postworthiness. -- jessamyn



 
Jesus wept.
posted by entropicamericana at 11:36 AM on October 19, 2010 [2 favorites]


Yeah, but the audience of law students laughed.
posted by fourcheesemac at 11:37 AM on October 19, 2010 [5 favorites]


Yes... yes, we are.
posted by LSK at 11:37 AM on October 19, 2010 [1 favorite]


Oh god, not this crazy woman again.
posted by Old'n'Busted at 11:37 AM on October 19, 2010 [1 favorite]


Ronald Reagan > Newt Gingrich > Sarah Palin > Christine O'Donnell > ?
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:38 AM on October 19, 2010 [1 favorite]


I'm referring to Jesus Rodriguez, the Constitutional scholar, of course.
posted by entropicamericana at 11:39 AM on October 19, 2010 [6 favorites]


Mabye she meant that those words aren't in the First Amendment.
posted by found missing at 11:39 AM on October 19, 2010


Ronald Reagan > Newt Gingrich > Sarah Palin > Christine O'Donnell > Potted plant
posted by Dark Messiah at 11:39 AM on October 19, 2010 [5 favorites]


Ronald Reagan > Newt Gingrich > Sarah Palin > Christine O'Donnell > ?

Bag of Hammers.
posted by zarq at 11:40 AM on October 19, 2010 [6 favorites]


When I saw the headline for this in the morning I thought it was one of those Evangelical gotcha things where the actual phrase 'separation of church and state' isn't in the Constitution but rather in a Jefferson letter, so I was like 'Oh you stupid...' and then I read the thing and it turns out no, she just has no idea.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:40 AM on October 19, 2010 [3 favorites]


> Inanimate Carbon Rod?
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:40 AM on October 19, 2010 [1 favorite]


"You actually audibly heard the crowd gasp," Widener University political scientist Wesley Leckrone said after the debate, adding that it raised questions about O'Donnell's grasp of the Constitution.

YA THINK!?
posted by zarq at 11:40 AM on October 19, 2010


You guys are being unduly hard on potted plants and bags of hammers.
posted by entropicamericana at 11:41 AM on October 19, 2010 [13 favorites]


Mabye she meant that those words aren't in the First Amendment.

Fucking brilliant way of phrasing it. Good thing she's not vying for some kind of position of authority where she'll have to speak publicly.
posted by Dark Messiah at 11:41 AM on October 19, 2010 [3 favorites]


Hey, there, watch it, Dark Mesiah.

(says the potted plant community)

As horrifying as this is:


Her comments, in a debate aired on radio station WDEL, generated a buzz in the audience.

"You actually audibly heard the crowd gasp,"


You don't think often as gasps being comforting, but for me, this one was.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 11:42 AM on October 19, 2010 [6 favorites]


You know how there's that one really, really successful person from your high school or college, and every time you run across yet another story about how he bought an island or she donated seventy-four times your salary (yeah, you do the math) to get clean drinking water for an entire nation, you just can't help but cry a little on the inside, because you totally could have loaned that guy a hundred bucks to start his company, or you could have taken her to the prom but her friend probably put out, and now you'd be Mr. Richerthanoprah?

That's how Beau Biden has felt, every single minute, for months. And will continue to for the next six years. And probably longer. I feel for that guy, I really do.
posted by Etrigan at 11:42 AM on October 19, 2010


She's talking about the original secret constitution drawn up by Salem witches.
posted by Artw at 11:42 AM on October 19, 2010


The potted plant community can't spell Messiah. Something I'll admit even Palin and Whitman probably get right.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 11:42 AM on October 19, 2010


The thing is, though...if this had been a different audience there might have been a bunch of heads nodding in agreement instead of gasps.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:43 AM on October 19, 2010 [5 favorites]


Is there any way of pursuing this thread that won't involve 300 straight CHRISTINE CUCKOO BANANAS LOLs?
posted by blucevalo at 11:43 AM on October 19, 2010 [1 favorite]


I don't think there's palm big enough for this face.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:43 AM on October 19, 2010 [1 favorite]


Good thing she's not vying for some kind of position of authority where she'll have to speak publicly.

She can probably whip up a spell for that once she's elected.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 11:43 AM on October 19, 2010 [2 favorites]


Hey, there, watch it, Dark Mesiah.

(says the potted plant community)


Hey man, we cool, we cool. Some of my best friends are potted plants.
posted by Dark Messiah at 11:43 AM on October 19, 2010


found missing: “Maybe she meant that those words aren't in the First Amendment.”

No, it's pretty clear she didn't. He actually read it off to her – "Congress shall make no law..." and she said: "you're telling me that's in the first amendment?"
posted by koeselitz at 11:43 AM on October 19, 2010


Come on, guys! The US Constitution is over four thousand words long, and that is before you even get to the amendments. You can't expect every candidate to be a brainiac.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 11:43 AM on October 19, 2010


"Regardless of my personal faith, when I go down to Washington, D.C., it is the Constitution that I will defend and it is by the Constitution that I will make all of my decisions, and that will be the standard-bearer for every piece of legislation that I will vote on."

Phew! Well, that's a relie--

"Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?"

Oh dear.
posted by Rhaomi at 11:44 AM on October 19, 2010 [5 favorites]


I see what they're doing here--she's being deployed to define down what's palatable, so that come 2012 we are BEGGING for Sarah Palin.
posted by everichon at 11:44 AM on October 19, 2010 [2 favorites]


Of course, she also didn't know what the 10th and 16th amendments were without a prompt.

But also of course, she's going to claim she meant "the actual words 'separation of church and state.'"

What a joke, a freaking organ grinder sideshow meant to take the focus of the consequences of Citizens United. May my fellow citizens please take the act of voting seriously this year? Conservative is one thing, right wing another, but this is just crazy stupid and that, I think, is really dangerous.
posted by fourcheesemac at 11:45 AM on October 19, 2010 [3 favorites]


Ah, the smell of freshly roasted Palin Spawn in the morning.
posted by benzenedream at 11:45 AM on October 19, 2010


What does the Constitution say about the separation of lust and masturbation?
posted by vverse23 at 11:45 AM on October 19, 2010


Here's the video of it. People laugh in the audience and she laughs too, but I don't think she gets people are laughing at her.
posted by mathowie at 11:45 AM on October 19, 2010 [3 favorites]


Why were the audience not arrested?
posted by Artw at 11:45 AM on October 19, 2010 [8 favorites]


Keep pushing that Overton Window, crazy people.
posted by 2bucksplus at 11:46 AM on October 19, 2010 [1 favorite]


What passes for a major party Senate candidate in 2010: a failed Christian activist with no real employment history who knows very little about how the US government functions and makes TV ads stating she's not a witch.

The joke's on us, guys.
posted by grounded at 11:46 AM on October 19, 2010 [7 favorites]


During the exchange, she said Coons' views on creationism showed that he believes in big-government mandates.

Those big-government Founding Fathers, going around telling everyone that they can't force everyone else to believe in religion, it's enough to make you sick.
posted by backseatpilot at 11:46 AM on October 19, 2010 [1 favorite]


Hey, everyone who saw the Jezebel gif thread...I found a use for this one!
posted by phunniemee at 11:47 AM on October 19, 2010


She's right about one thing, though. The rent is too damn high.
posted by The Bellman at 11:47 AM on October 19, 2010 [1 favorite]


Mabye she meant that those words aren't in the First Amendment.

Somehow I just don't think she's bright enough to ask a nuanced question like that, and she certainly didn't phrase her question that way.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:48 AM on October 19, 2010


Am I a terrible person for fantasizing about starting a charity that sterilizes Tea Party candidates?
posted by freshwater_pr0n at 11:48 AM on October 19, 2010 [6 favorites]


I don't think she gets people are laughing at her.

OMG, yes. She thinks they're laughing at him, like she just landed some elegant verbal blow. Holy fuck.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:48 AM on October 19, 2010 [7 favorites]


Christine O'Donnell seems more and more like the distracting weak right jab before you feel a sharp knee to the groin.
posted by swift at 11:49 AM on October 19, 2010 [5 favorites]


I wish I could have been there to scream out "HOLY FUCK" above all the mere gasps when she dropped that one.
posted by GuyZero at 11:50 AM on October 19, 2010 [14 favorites]


Does anyone have a transcript of the exact words used in the debate? (I can find ons for previous debates but not this one.) Because I'm trying to give, at least, her campaign folks, the benefit of the doubt, but when I look at this part of the article:

When Coons responded that the First Amendment bars Congress from making laws respecting the establishment of religion, O'Donnell asked: "You're telling me that's in the First Amendment?"

and then read the response

"She simply made the point that the phrase appears nowhere in the Constitution," Moran said.

But then compare it to the text of the First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

I just don't even understand how the dumbest of spinmeisters could come up with this as an excuse after the fact. As far as I can tell the only wiggle room would be if you were going to argue that "bars" is not the same as "shall make no law", and that's tricky to say the least.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 11:50 AM on October 19, 2010


allow me to translate for Ms. O'Donnell

Ye First Amendment stateth:

"Thou shalt not mix church and state"
posted by arveale at 11:51 AM on October 19, 2010


Maybe she meant that those words aren't in the First Amendment.

I honestly do think that this is where she's coming from, by way of ignorance and uncritically swallowed talking points. I remember from my Evangelical elementary schooling it being presented as a commonplace that liberals (the bad ones who want to ban prayer in schools and tear down the Ten Commandments in court rooms) ignorantly believe that 'separation of church and state' is in the First Amendment, whereas it's from Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptist Association. It's a rhetorical dodge, of course, because it obviates that the concept of the separation of church & state is clearly enshrined in the Constitution, but the conversation has already moved past that point to getting you to be upset with liberals who are banning school prayer.

In any event, if Christine O'Donnell comes from the same background I do, she's been told time and again by authority figures that it isn't in there, which is, I imagine, where she starts off on her trail towards this current national embarrassment. I don't mean this to excuse her, at all, but it's at least something to talk about besides arguing about whether hammers or potted plants are more intelligent.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:51 AM on October 19, 2010 [1 favorite]


You know, this whole Christine O'Donnell thing gives me the exact same feeling one has when watching a train wreck about to happen. One part, oohhhh shit, the other part, cooool, train wreck.
posted by Old'n'Busted at 11:51 AM on October 19, 2010


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