Foundation says Deevers should resign over remarks on religion

OKLAHOMA CITY — The Freedom From Religion Foundation is calling on Oklahoma Sen. Dusty Deevers, R-Elgin, to step down after he claimed his religious beliefs trump the law and his constitutional obligations.

While on the Oklahoma Senate floor March 13, Deevers said federal law should not be obeyed if it violates “God’s word.”

Officials with the Freedom from Religion Foundation said Deevers’ assertion that the law “should be in accordance with God’s word” is wrong. They said his declaration shows brazen support for Christian nationalism — the claim that America is a Christian nation, that religious law should prevail and that Christian adherents are the true Americans — and blatant disregard for the separation of state and church, in betrayal of his oath of office to the secular U.S. Constitution.

“The Framers of the Constitution made the United States first among nations to invest sovereignty not in a deity, but in ‘We the People,’” Freedom From Religion Foundation Co-Presidents Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker said in a statement.

They said Deevers’ contention that his religious beliefs trump federal law is anathema to America’s founding principles and the views of most Americans, including Christians. Many American Christians respect the diversity of American culture and understand fellow Americans may not share their religious values, as evidenced by groups like Christians Against Christian Nationalism, they said.

Foundation officials said Deevers’ advocacy for a Christian theocracy is not only at odds with the country’s history and laws, but stigmatizes and marginalizes many of his constituents. Nonreligious Americans are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population by religious identification — 37 percent of Americans are non-Christian, and this includes the nearly one-in-three Americans who now identifies as religiously unaffiliated, they said. Deevers’ statements convey he considers non-Christians second-class citizens.

“Deevers’ un-American statements should concern every citizen of the United States,” Gaylor said. “Our laws are in place to protect the rights and freedoms of all citizens — regardless of their religious or nonreligious views.”