After the inauguration, President DeSantis and the new GOP Congress got to work. The first priority, of course, was a national ban on abortion, which Mitch McConnell facilitated by acquiescing to the repeal of the filibuster. The second major initiative was a new Test Act. This legislation, modeled on the one adopted in England in the 17th century, required all federal employees and officeholders to provide proof that they had attended at least one service at a church in existence in 1791. The Act was later amended to include Mormons in order to accommodate a large right-wing group that didn’t exist at the time the First Amendment was approved.
The new legislation was challenged as being a clear violation of the Establishment Clause. DeSantis argued that it was constitutional in that it provided the plaintiffs with numerous religious options; it did not create any sort of national church. Furthermore, he contended that the Founding Fathers were pious Christians who had no time for agnostics and atheists. He thus insisted that the legislation was valid if one correctly applied an originalist approach.
How do you think this turns out, based on the Supreme Court’s latest decisions? And don’t say it is too extreme even for the GOP; this is what reactionaries really want, and the frontier is moving fast.