Here Comes "The Handmaid's Tale"

The right-wing conservative want to turn our country into a “Christian Nation” just like the Islamic nation they so strongly despise.

The Christian Nationalist Machine Turning Hate Into Law
The National Association of Christian Lawmakers is enacting its "biblical worldview," one state legislature at a time
Rolling Stone
By Tim Dickinson
February 23, 2023


Jason Rapert has likened himself to an Old Testament seer, conveying hard truths on behalf of an angry God. On his broadcast Save the Nation, the 50-year-old preacher and former Arkansas state senator calls himself a “proud” Christian Nationalist, insisting: “I reject that being a Christian Nationalist is somehow unseemly or wrong.”

Long a shadowy force in American politics, Christian Nationalism is having a coming out party. The movement seeks a fusion of fundamentalist theology with American civic life. “They believe that this country was founded for Christians like them, generally natural-born citizens and white,” says Andrew Whitehead, author of Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States. Whitehead emphasizes that the danger of Christian Nationalism to democracy is that the movement “sees no room for compromise — their vision must be the one that comes to pass.”

Thanks to Rapert, the Christian Nationalist movement now commands a burgeoning political powerhouse, the National Association of Christian Lawmakers. A first-of-its-kind organization in U.S. history, NACL advances “biblical” legislation in America’s statehouses. These bills are not mere stunts or messaging. They’re dark, freedom-limiting bills that, in some cases, have become law. 

NACL’s impact has already been felt nationally. The group played a significant role in the legal fight that culminated in the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. NACL member Bryan Hughes, who serves in the Texas legislature, led passage of S.B. 8, the bounty-hunter bill that all-but outlawed abortion in Texas by allowing private citizens to sue women who terminate pregnancies after six weeks, and their doctors, in civil court. 

And it is only one sect that they want the nation to follow, religious sects that are affirming of LGBTQ+… Nein. Religions that allow abortions… Nein.  Religions that allow women ministers… Nein.

Today, NACL has legislative members in 31 states, and touts a dozen “model laws” that its members can introduce “in legislative bodies around the country.” NACL previously made four of its model laws public — including the Texas-style anti-abortion bill and a bill to mandate the display of “In God We Trust” in public buildings. 

It is through them and the Alliance Defending Freedom that all these anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ bills are being introduced.

With a national agenda and a state-by-state focus, NACL is emulating the American Legislative Exchange Council. An infamous corporate front group, ALEC pioneered the strategy of pushing for national political goals by advancing carbon-copy bills through state legislatures. But where ALEC serves far-right billionaire masters and polluting special interests, NACL sees itself as serving the Lord on high. Rapert has touted NACL as “basically ALEC from a biblical worldview.” 

Founded in Aug. 2020, NACL is tied to top Christian spiritual and political leaders. The group’s advisory board includes onetime presidential candidate Mike Huckabee — the former governor of Arkansas and father of the new governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders — Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, and Mat Staver, president of Liberty Counsel. (Liberty Counsel is a frequent litigant before the Supreme Court; the head of its ministry, Rolling Stone exposed, bragged of praying with SCOTUS justices.)

Rapert declares that America was founded as a “Judeo-Christian nation.” And he believes that from the moment the founding fathers “dedicated this nation to God” that “Satan and his forces [have] put a target on the United States of America, trying to take us out.”

What I am concerned about is that if the Republicans get the trifecta (The presidency, the Senate, and the House) and get a trifecta in 34 states (They have 22 already!) that they will try to pass a constitutional amendment codifying their attempt to be a Christian nation. The “Handmaid's Tale” is becoming reality!