As a federal judge decides whether to allow Mississippi’s ban on same-sex marriage, a group called Magnolia State Heritage Campaign has been trying to introduce Christianity as the state’s official religion. The group has proposed a constitutional amendment that they believe will be entertained on the 2016 ballot.

Arthur Randallson, one of the campaign managers, told the media, “We have taken a little bit of time to prepare an initiative that covers promoting Christianity, which is recognized as the principal religion of Mississippi from the founding of the state in 1817 to the present, and affirmed in the state constitution prayer acknowledging the Holy Bible.”

If amended, the concerned text in the state’s constitution would read as follows:

“The State of Mississippi hereby acknowledges the fact of her identity as a principally Christian and quintessentially Southern state, in terms of the majority of her population, character, culture, history, and heritage, from 1817 to the present; accordingly, the Holy Bible is acknowledged as a foremost source of her founding principles, inspiration, and virtues; and, accordingly, prayer is acknowledged as a respected, meaningful, and valuable custom of her citizens. The acknowledgments hereby secured shall not be construed to transgress either the national or the state Constitution’s Bill of Rights.”

Simply put, the revision would suggest that the proposed amendment does not violate the First Amendment, which in fact does forbid the establishment of a state religion.

This initiative, which has been steered by the Tea Party, also hopes to establish English as the state’s official language, thus requiring all government functions, services and communications to be carried out in that language only. There is actually a lot more to the Heritage Initiative than this. Given the opportunity, advocates of this initiative would like to embrace Mississippi’s Confederate heritage by making Dixie the state song and April the Confederate heritage month. Apparently, they would also want to fly the Confederate battle flag at the state capitol, reinstate Colonel Reb as the official mascot of the state university and continue to have the English Bulldog as the mascot of Mississippi State University and the Golden Eagle as the mascot for the University of Southern Mississippi.

Since the proposal for making English the official state language has already been approved, the Heritage Campaign is now collecting 110,000 signatures so the issue qualifies for the 2016 ballot.

However, American Civil Liberties Union in Mississippi has condemned these proposals, pointing to the fact that declaring Christianity as the state religion would make secondary religious diversity and peaceful pluralism and declaring English as the state language would discriminate against minorities. ACLU also said other aspects of the initiative including the promotion of the Confederate’s culture, heritage and tradition are marred with racial undertones and should not be encouraged.

Photo Credits: Sons of the South