From the bend-over-here-it-comes department:

TOPEKA, Kan. — Although fixing the economy is the top priority, Republicans who won greater control of state governments in this month’s election are considering how to pursue action on a range of social issues, including abortion, gun rights and even divorce laws.

John Hanna at HuffPo points out that our neighbors, Kansas and Oklahoma, are far more conservative after the November elections:

The tension is particularly visible in Kansas, where the victory by Gov.-elect Sam Brownback, a strong opponent of abortion and gay marriage, has created strong expectations among evangelical supporters.

A similar scenario is taking shape in strongly conservative Oklahoma, where a Republican governor will replace a Democrat, and to a lesser extent in Michigan, Wisconsin and several other states.

All of this means, of course, that evangelical Christians will have a good chance of turning those states into quasi-theocracies.  And they won’t wait too long, as this quote exemplifies:

“We’re not going to spend the next 18 months doing nothing but economic issues,” said Wisconsin Republican Sen. Glenn Grothman, an advocate of tougher abortion restrictions.

Hanna points out that Republicans won all statewide races on the ballot in Kansas and have a 92-33 advantage in the House. Couple that with the election of Sam Brownback, a Christian fanatic, as governor, and the question, “What would Jesus do?” will finally have an answer in Kansas politics.  About the only thing that has stopped religious zealots from turning Kansas (my home state) into an evangelical Vatican has been the presence of Democratic governors.

Brownback, at one time a resident at the now-famous C Street Center, owned by a group of Christian extremists called The Family, was a co-sponsor of the Constitution Restoration Act, which, of course, doesn’t restore the Constitution at all.  But here’s what it does do, according to Wikipedia:

…the Supreme Court shall not have jurisdiction to review, by appeal, writ of certiorari, or otherwise, any matter to the extent that relief is sought against an entity of Federal, State, or local government, or against an officer or agent of Federal, State, or local government (whether or not acting in official or personal capacity), concerning that entity’s, officer’s, or agent’s acknowledgment of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government. In other words, the bill would limit the power of the federal judiciary specifically in religious liberty cases. The bill also states that judges or other court officials that listen to cases that meet said criteria are to be impeached and convicted.

The Constitution Restoration Act is considered by some to be part of a movement of so-called Christian dominionists*, who in the extreme version believe biblical law should exclusively govern society and in a slightly milder form believe, according to sociologist Sara Diamond,

that Christians alone are Biblically mandated to occupy all secular institutions until Christ returns.

Wikipedia continues:

Diamond declared that this concept “has become the central unifying ideology for the Christian Right” (p. 138, emphasis in original). In 1995, she called it “prevalent on the Christian Right”. Journalist Chip Berlet added in 1998 that, although they represent different theological and political ideas, dominionists assert a Christian duty to take “control of a sinful secular society.”

None of this should come as a surprise, especially in Oklahoma, which has already been the nation’s leader in terms of Talibanic governance.  This time Oklahoma voters exorcised even more Democratic legislator-demons and will have a Republican governor to oversee the transition to a brand of politics that Tulsa’s Oral Roberts would be proud of.

Oh, for a while the evangelicals will tolerate some backsliders among their new politicians.  Hanna quotes Shawnee, Kansas, Republican Owen Donohoe as delicately saying Sam Brownback’s legislative agenda “may not be as conservative as we wish.”  But such grace won’t last forever.  I know evangelicals and they won’t tolerate a failure to enact their holy agenda for too long.  After all, the fate of America as a Christian nation is at stake.

Abortion rights (what’s left of them) and gay rights will definitely be the target of the Christian Taliban as evangelicals and fundamentalists attempt to take their country back and turn it into a theocracy, one state at a time.

And Kansas and Oklahoma represent the low-hanging fruit of that Crusade.

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*For more on Sam Brownback’s connection to the dominionist movement and controversial pastor Lou Engle, see here and here.  The short of it is that Brownback apparently lived with Lou Engle for a time and attended “several events” with him, according to Right Wing Watch, which then writes:

So let’s ask Brownback again just which of Engle’s views concern him the most:  Is it his Dominionism? or his view that homosexuality should be criminalized? or his fear that President Obama is unleashing demons upon this nation? or that universities are conditioning students to accept the Mark of the Beast? or maybe that Satan has gained control over the US government?

You get the idea.