What It Means When You Blame “Godlessness” for Everything

You’re saying everything was fine during the days of segregation, child labor, and enslavement — which makes you an asshole

An angry priest, or, possibly Angus Young being ironic. Image: M-Production, Shutterstock, standard license, purchased by the author

It never fails.

Whenever a natural disaster or economic crisis hits, or any time something seems to be going wrong in America in the eyes of conservative Christians, there will always be some right-wing lawmaker or pundit insisting the calamity to be the work of God.

To hear such folks explain things, in moments such as this, the Almighty is either punishing America for our supposed Godlessness or at the very least withdrawing his protection of us, thereby allowing awful things to transpire.

We heard it after 9/11, after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and of course in the wake of the 2015 Supreme Court decision in favor of marriage equality.

In the latter case, Texas Congressman Louis Gohmert insisted that because of the marriage equality decision, “God’s hand of protection will be withdrawn” from America.

At other times, reactionary voices have blamed the removal of organized prayer in schools in 1962 as the proximate cause of America’s descent into the abyss, or perhaps the legalization of abortion in 1973.