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| Nicholas Chupka stands before a bare brick wall |
Nicholas Chupka
Staff Writer
It has only been a few months since the election of Republican Governor Pat McCrory, signaling the GOP’s rise to power in the North Carolina government and bringing with it two bills that could quite possibly make the Tar Heel State the laughing stock of the nation.
The recent North Carolina GOP written Defense of Religion Act was created with the intention to implement an official “state religion” and sparked much anger and outrage all across the Internet. The bill declared that the federal government cannot prevent a state from “making laws respecting an establishment of religion,” and that the First Amendment of the Constitution only applies to the federal government. All right, I guess freedom of speech applies only to the federal government and that the states can mandate what its citizens can and cannot say.
Thankfully, the bill was killed nearly instantly by North Carolina GOP House Speaker Thom Tillis, but it raises the question, “What are our lawmakers thinking?” The idea that you could try to create a state religion is totally ridiculous, and violates the rights of those in the states who are not followers of the so called “state religion”. Not only that, but it is so blatantly unconstitutional. I don’t know what is worse, thinking that liberties like freedom of speech and the right to bear arms don’t apply to individual states, or thinking that no one will notice the fact that you just tried to force your religion on the entire state. These lawmakers should be embarrassed for ignoring such a key element of our country’s freedom.
The N.C. lawmakers didn’t stop there, though. A new Voter ID law is being thrown into the arena, one that will require photo ID in order to vote. The problem here is the people who are most likely not have a photo ID are minorities and the poor. What do these two groups of people have in common? The majority of them vote for the Democratic Party. What’s the GOP’s solution? Prevent them from voting. They’re creating this bill with the mindset, “If they won’t vote for us, then they can’t vote at all.” What age are we living in? This is like a modern day poll tax.
The purpose of the bill is to prevent voter fraud, but as we all know, voter fraud is very uncommon. In fact, according to ABC, only 40 out of 197 million votes cast between 2002 and 2005 resulted in voter fraud. Even if the bill is aimed to take down voter fraud, they should at least offer opportunities for the lower class to obtain a photo ID.
Governor McCrory also announced his support of the Voter ID bill. The GOP isn’t getting votes because they don’t appeal to 2013 America. They need to realize that if they were more open minded to different groups of people, then they wouldn’t be facing this problem. Allowing bills like this to be written will certainly cost the GOP votes in the next election.
