The Christians are coming, the Christians are coming. Well, at least, a dozen or so of them are, to part of South Carolina. And they got plans, dude.

In the South Carolina of their dreams, abortion would be illegal. The Ten Commandments would be proudly displayed. Public schools would be a thing of the past. Taxes would be severely limited, and property rights would be paramount.

Doesn’t that sound like paradise? Doesn’t that just sound like a little corner of heaven right here on earth? The Ten Commandments would be proudly displayed. Cool. So no graven images then – no graven images of anything in the sky, or on the earth, or in the water. No stars, no fish, no flowers, no airplanes, no leviathan, no mountains, no birds, no kelp, no 2005 silver Mercedes with leather upholstery. No family snaps, either. But so then what about family values? That’s the part I don’t get. I thought family values were all about sitting around the stove on winter evenings looking at pictures of Junior sledding down hill and Sis with her blue-ribbon pie at the county fair and Grandma pouring herself a stiff drink. No? Well okay, I wouldn’t know, I’m a stranger here myself. Next item – public schools would be a thing of the past. Well that’s a lovely thought. So – everybody in this dreamland is rich enough to pony up for private school? Okay – then who does the shitwork? Has it escaped the dreamers’ notice that rich people don’t do shitwork? Who’s going to do it then? Who’s going to work on their cars, and pass their food over the scanner and take their money, and clean their houses? Or is the plan that women will do all that – homeschool the children and do all the shitwork? So – they’ll be working part-time at the supermarket then, and the garage, and the restaurant? While homeschooling? Could get tricky. But, hey, property rights would be paramount, so no doubt they would work it out somehow.

And if the federal government tried to interfere, well, they’d secede.

Aha! The Civil War, Part Deux! Great!

Many South Carolinians, including conservatives, are skeptical about the new group.

Gee, I wonder why.

Oh well – look on the bright side. They don’t have a back room full of nail-studded bombs all ready to go, at least not that they mention, so I suppose that’s something.

Muriel Gray has a better take.

For the government of a secular country such as ours to treat religion as if it had real merit instead of regarding it as a ridiculous anachronism, which education, wisdom and experience can hopefully overcome in time, is one of the most depressing developments of the 21st century…we have debates on TV news shows between hardline Muslim scholars and moderate Muslim politicians without any intervening voice of scepticism suggesting that the whole darned thing might be just as invented as virgin births and Mormon tablets.

Which apart from anything else is so condescending. Amartya Sen might as well not even have bothered publishing that book.

Since these are dark days, it’s time to stop all this polite tiptoeing around religion and harden up accordingly. Our elected leaders constantly bleating their respect for religion is not political correctness but a public declaration that intellect, tolerance, democracy, reason and enlightenment are of less value than dogma and delusion…No bishops, mullahs, Presbyterian ministers, rabbis, or Scientologists should be gifted special hearings at Downing Street…

Good idea. As impossible of attainment as the dream of the Christian South Carolina, but a good idea all the same.