The Democratic Party has promised us that it would do whatever it takes to create jobs and improve the economy. Democrats in Congress said that they would work to get a good jobs bill passed, and not waste time with frivolous matters.

That’s not what happened this week. This week, the House of Representatives spent the better part of a day debating, and then voting on, a resolution that has no force in law, but declares that “the people of the United States have turned to God”.

The fact is that the American people are increasingly turning away from belief in God. The American Religious Identification Survey has shown that in the United States there is a trend away from religion in general, and away from Christianity in particular.

So, the resolution passed by the House of Representatives, H. Con. Res. 13, is factually incorrect. More important than that, though, is that it’s constitutionally illegal. The Constitution forbids a government establishment of religion through acts of Congress. Yet, H. Con. Res. 13 reaffirms that “In God We Trust” is the national motto of the United States of America. That’s an establishment of religion through an act of Congress.

Apparently, the U.S. House of Representatives believes that promoting Christianity is more important than defending the Constitution of the United States of America. Somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of the American people, non-Christian Americans, would disagree with that.

163 members of the House of Representatives may now be encountering some serious trouble from the significant non-Christian minority in America. You see, non-Christians in America are more likely to vote than Christians are. They’re more highly educated, and have higher incomes too, which means that they’re more likely to make substantial political donations than Christian Americans are. Non-Christian Americans also tend to vote Democrat – or have in the past.

Will non-Christians vote Democrat in the 2012 congressional elections? Most of them don’t have much reason to any more. Only 8 Democrats in the House of Representatives had the courage to do the right thing and vote against H. Con. Res. 13.

163 Democrats decided to take the cowardly, craven route, and voted along with the House Republicans in favor of the resolution declaring, in defiance of the Constitution, that the United States is a nation of God. The names of these theocratic Democrats are listed below, so that they can be held accountable on Election Day 2012. They do not deserve the votes or the financial support of Non-Christian Americans, and they are rather unlikely to win without it.

Democrats in the U.S. House Who Were Too Busy Promoting Theocracy To Work On A Jobs Bill This Week:

Jason Altmire, Robert Andrews, Joe Baca, Tammy Baldwin, John Barrow, Karen Bass, Xavier Becerra, Shelley Berkley, Howard Berman, Timothy Bishop, Dan Boren, Leonard Boswell, Robert Brady, Bruce Braley, Corrine Brown, G.K. Butterfield, Lois Capps, Michael Capuano, Dennis Cardoza, Russ Carnahan, John Carney, Kathy Castor, Ben Chandler, David Cicilline, Hansen Clarke, Yvette Clarke, William Clay, James Clyburn, Steve Cohen, Gerald Connolly, John Conyers, Jim Cooper, Jim Costa, Mark Critz, Joseph Crowley, Henry Cuellar, Susan Davis, Danny Davis, Peter DeFazio, Diana DeGette, Ted Deutch, Norman Dicks, John Dingell, Lloyd Doggett, Joe Donnelly, Michael Doyle, Donna Edwards, Eliot Engel, Anna Eshoo, Sam Farr, Barney Frank, Marcia Fudge, John Garamendi, Charles Gonzalez, Al Green, Gene Green, Raul Grijalva, Janice Hahn, Colleen Hanabusa, Alcee Hastings, Martin Heinrich, Brian Higgins, James Himes, Maurice Hinchey, Rubén Hinojosa, Mazie Hirono, Kathleen Hochul, Tim Holden, Rush Holt, Steny Hoyer, Jay Inslee, Steve Israel, Jesse Jackson, Sheila Jackson Lee, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Marcy Kaptur, William Keating, Dale Kildee, Ron Kind, Larry Kissell, Dennis Kucinich, James Langevin, Rick Larsen, John Larson, Barbara Lee, Sander Levin, Daniel Lipinski, David Loebsack, Zoe Lofgren, Nita Lowey, Ben Luján, Carolyn Maloney, Edward Markey, Jim Matheson, Doris Matsui, Carolyn McCarthy, Betty McCollum, James McDermott, James McGovern, Mike McIntyre, Jerry McNerney, Gregory Meeks, Michael Michaud, Brad Miller, George Miller, Gwen Moore, James Moran, Grace Napolitano, Richard Neal, John Olver, William Owens, Frank Pallone, William Pascrell, Ed Pastor, Donald Payne, Nancy Pelosi, Ed Perlmutter, Gary Peters, Collin Peterson, Chellie Pingree, Jared Polis, David Price, Mike Quigley, Nick Rahall, Charles Rangel, Silvestre Reyes, Laura Richardson, Mike Ross, Steven Rothman, Lucille Roybal-Allard, C.A. Ruppersberger, Timothy Ryan, Linda Sanchez, Loretta Sanchez, John Sarbanes, Janice Schakowsky, Adam Schiff, Kurt Schrader, Allyson Schwartz, David Scott, Jose Serrano, Terri Sewell, Brad Sherman, Heath Shuler, Albio Sires, Louise Slaughter, Adam Smith, Betty Sutton, Mike Thompson, John Tierney, Paul Tonko, Edolphus Towns, Christopher Van Hollen, Nydia Velazquez, Peter Visclosky, Timothy Walz, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Maxine Waters, Henry Waxman, Peter Welch, Frederica Wilson, Lynn Woolsey, John Yarmuth

These 163 Democrats could have been working on crafting a jobs bill that could pass the House and be signed into law. They could have been working on legislation to end special tax breaks for the wealthy, helping to restore some financial justice to the American economy. They weren’t. They were too busy using the power of government to push the worship of the Christian god. They’ve failed us, not just constitutionally, but economically as well.

Postscript:

Every day that the House of Representatives is in session, the House Chaplain gets up in front of all members of the lower body of Congress and says a prayer, a magical incantation urging the Christian God to make the U.S. House of Representatives a productive political body. That’s been going on for years and years now, but still, here we are, with astonishingly high unemployment, and Congress hasn’t been able to do anything to make the situation better.

With all the congressional prayers to God, you would think that God would have gotten the message by now – if God existed. But, it seems that, if there is a God, God either doesn’t care about our rotten economy, or is impotent to do anything about it. Certainly, no divine power has given Congress the wherewithal to deal with our nation’s unemployment problem, or with the crisis of financial inequality.

Given the failed record of prayers to God in Congress, I have to wonder just why it is that members of Congress still trust in God. The record of achievement just isn’t there to back up that trust.