Ben Cline picks fight with journalist over Republican prayer, gets schooled on Bible

Ben Cline wants you to know that Republicans pray on the House floor, and that if you’ve got a problem with that, get over it.

Literally used those words.

“Our Constitution protects my right to do so. Get over it,” Cline, a Republican who represents the Sixth District, basically the I-81 corridor from Winchester down to Salem, in the House, wrote on Twitter on Thursday.

The post came in response to this from Pulitzer-winning investigative journalist David Cay Johnston to his 180,000-plus Twitter followers.

“House GOP members praying on the House floor offends both our Constitution and the New Testament, which denounces public displays of devotion. The blasphemy of the new Speaker, who says God ordained him, is just as disgusting,” Johnston wrote.

And Johnston has good points here. While, yes, Cline has it right, that the Constitution protects his freedom of religion, that same Constitution protects the rest of us with freedom from religion, Cline’s and anyone else’s.

The New Testament argument from Johnston is also salient, and was noted by several people commenting on Cline’s quote-tweet thread, quoting the Gospel of Matthew, chapter six, which reads:

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others.”

Sick burn, there, particularly given the visual – seven Republican dudes not only taking over the floor of the House for their display, but then putting a photo of the moment all over social media, for the attaboys.

We haven’t heard from Cline in terms of a response to his critics.

Curiously, Cline has also stayed silent on the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, that killed 18 people this week.

Lewiston, Maine, is the home of Bates College, and Cline is a Bates ’94 alum.

You’d think that Cline, seen above in public prayer, could at least offer a prayer, even a thought and a prayer, for Bates College and for Lewiston, where he spent four formative years, given that, you know, that’s all Republicans ever have when there’s a mass shooting involving an AR-15, are thoughts and prayers.

Maybe next time.