GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) warned of a “Christian Taliban” while slamming comments made by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) at a church gathering over the weekend.
Boebert, who has been criticized for her far-right views on issues like religion, told an audience Sunday at the Cornerstone Christian Center in Basalt, Colorado that: “The church is suppose to direct the government. The government is not suppose to direct the church. I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk — that’s not in the Constitution. It was in a stinking letter and it means nothing like they say it does.”
The phrase “separation of church and State” comes from a letter written by then-President Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802. In the letter Jefferson wrote that the American public had built “a wall of separation between Church and State” when they adopted the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
Kinzinger slammed Boebert’s opposition to separating religion from the government and compared her remarks to the views held by the Taliban.
“There is no difference between this and the Taliban. We must [oppose] the Christian Taliban. I say this as a Christian,” Kinzinger tweeted.
