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Christian Nationalism

In Kandiss Taylor's Christian Nation, 'I Don't Have to Give You Your Freedom of Religion'

During the most recent episode(link is external) of her “Jesus, Guns, and Babies” program, which airs on the network owned by virulently antisemitic conspiracy theorist Stew Peters(link is external), Christian nationalist GOP activist Kandiss Taylor claimed that the Christian church is supposed to be running the government and therefore non-Christians are not entitled to freedom of religion.

Taylor is flat-earth(link is external) conspiracy theorist(link is external) who unsuccessfully(link is external) ran for governor of Georgia in 2022 and despite her paltry showing(link is external) in the Republican primary, she steadfastly(link is external) refused(link is external) to accept(link is external) that she had lost. In 2023, Taylor became(link is external) a Georgia GOP district chair(link is external) and started voicing increasingly radical(link is external) views, even going so far as to call for the public execution(link is external) of those who oppose her Christian nationalist worldview.

Those radical views were on display during her recent program as she insisted that the Constitution was founded on common law and that common law is rooted in the Bible, meaning that the United States "was founded on Jesus Christ."

"The idea behind the whole document was that the church runs the state," Taylor asserted. "The church is we the people. We are the church ... and so we run the state. But the state, the government, has no control over the church."

"And everybody is like, 'Then you gotta let Satanists come in and you gotta let witches come in, and you've gotta let Muslims and Hindus,'" she continued. "No. No, we don't. No, we don't because America is founded on God almighty, Creator God, Yahweh, Elohim. That is what we're founded on and I don't have to honor your religion. I don't have to give you freedom of religion. Freedom of religion is there for us to worship Jesus. It's not for you to come force anything else upon me."

"So we have that all wrong," Taylor declared. "We've had tolerance. We've been politically correct. And at what point are we going to say, 'No, we're not going to be'? You can do whatever you want to the comfort of your home. You can do whatever you want to, but don't come into my government and bring any of that trash in there."

"We shouldn't be electing anyone in government—local, state or federal—that is not a Christian," Taylor concluded.

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