Earlier this year, Indiana's far-right Christian nationalist Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith caused outrage and generated controversy when he boasted that he was giving the residents of his state "permission to hate" the religion of Islam. Undaunted by the blowback, Beckwith steadfastly defended his statement and repeatedly doubled down on it, insisting that attacking Islam is "a political winner" for Republicans.
Recently, Beckwith appeared on the Conservative Review podcast, where he continued to attack Islam and called for Muslims to be banned from engaging in public displays of their faith.
"We should ban the calls to prayer, public calls to prayer," Beckwith declared. "If you're a mosque and you want to have a loudspeaker and you want to start pumping these out five times a day locally, the state can say, 'You're not going to do that. We're not allowing that. We're not going to let you put these words of death and destruction throughout the city streets in any of our cities.'"
"Listen, we are a Christian nation," Beckwith continued. "The Supreme Court in the Coach Kennedy case ruled that. They said, 'Hey, the heritage of America is a Christian heritage and so that's why Christianity takes precedent over all other faiths.' Everyone can worship how they want, but you don't get to implement Islam in our public spaces. You can't put the Quran up on school walls, but you can't put the Ten Commandments up on school walls. Why? Because of our Judeo-Christian principles. That's our heritage."
For the record, in no way did the Supreme Court's Kennedy v. Bremerton School District decision declare that "we are a Christian nation."
