Former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, who was elected House majority leader in 2002 but later left office in the middle of a battle against unsubstantiated claims of money laundering, says America is losing its greatness because it has abandoned God.
"Over the last 100 years, the people of America have systematically pushed God out of the public square," he told WND in an interview. "Therefore, we are no longer a moral nation. In the absence of God decadence abounds. Sixty million babies are murder[ed], divorce, homosexual marriage, breakdown of the family, etc., become the norm.
"Instant gratification runs up unsustainable debts. A prescription for disaster."
DeLay was interviewed during a series of appearances in Houston in recent days, where he announced what he believes is the beginning of a "second American revolution." This time, he says, it's on behalf of the Constitution.
DeLay talked about his upcoming book, "Shut It Down," in which he advocates selective defunding of various unconstitutional actions of the "Imperial President." He would simply have Congress pick three unconstitutional programs run by the federal government each week and pull all funding for them.
Speaking at a meeting of the Texas Tea Party Republican Women, he cited Colossians 1:16, which reads, "For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him."
He contends the verse demonstrates God created America and the Constitution, and that both should be defended for this reason alone.
DeLay told WND the Founding Fathers, "along with most of the citizens of the colonies, were religious, moral, and well educated on which was based their worldview."
"From that worldview, they knew there was a God, and they called on Him for guidance. They knew that God and the Bible were the solutions for the tyranny they faced," he said.
"They used those Judeo-Christian principles to create a nation," DeLay continued. "These principles are the reason that America is great. It will cease to be great if the people turn their backs on God, whereby God will turn his back on us. God governs in the affairs of man. America has become a great nation because of the Constitution and the consent of the governed, and it will cease to be a great nation when its people are no longer religious, moral, or less knowledgeable."
He said right now, America "is less the land of the free than at any other time in its history."
"We have given up our freedom for security, whether it be safety or economically. We have built a government that is now bigger than our society."
The trend only can be reversed through revolution, he said.
It's a "revolution for the Constitution, and all those that are elected in the upcoming elections [need to] understand that this nation needs constitutional revival to save the country and who we are as a nation."
He said the government is supposed to be the face of morality.
"Law is the expression of morality. Every time I voted as a representative I was making a moral statement," he said.
Ironically, it was Russian President Vladimir Putin who also recently expressed condemnation for the liberal movement in the United States.
Putin said during a "Constitution Day" observation in Russia, that "there are more and more people in the world who support our position on defending traditional values that have made up the spiritual and moral foundation of civilization in every nation for thousands of years: the values of traditional families, real human life, including religious life, not just material existence but also spirituality, the values of humanism and global diversity."
Without specifically naming the U.S., he said that today "many nations are revising their moral values and ethical norms, eroding ethnic traditions and differences between peoples and cultures. "
"Society is now required not only to recognize everyone's right to the freedom of consciousness, political views and privacy, but also to accept without question the equality of good and evil, strange as it seems, concepts that are opposite in meaning," Putin said.
He said such "destruction of traditional values from above" produces problems for society and essentially is "anti-democratic."
Since Barack Obama was elected president, the U.S. government's advocacy for abortion has increased along with an aggressive campaign to institute same-sex marriage. Expression of religion in the public square also had been further curtailed.
A writer at Catholic Online compared Russia's assertion of moral leadership in the face of America's decadence to the 1960s comic book world of Bizarro, the anti-thesis of America.
Keith Fournier wrote: "The Bizarro World comes to mind as I watch the erosion of the moral foundation of freedom in the United States of America. I grew up believing that the United States of America, with its Christian roots, emphasis on a Natural Moral Law and recognition of inalienable rights which come from God, was a beacon for all nations."
He said Putin seems to have diagnosed "the problems facing the Russian nation, and proposing a path to cultural renewal."
It 's a path, Fournier said, that "leads through a recovery of the moral values found in faith in God."
He said America, meanwhile, needs "to recover the moral roots of her freedom."
"That will only come by turning back to God who is the source of freedom."
DeLay agreed.
"America can reclaim its moral authority by placing God and the Bible as its number one priority. Those who do not believe in God should make the Constitution and the spirit of the Constitution their number one priority," he said.
"Most Americans are ignorant of American history and especially the Constitution," said DeLay. "Our founders warned us that we must have religion, morality AND knowledge to sustain the gift they have given us. The lack of knowledge pushes us toward an Imperial President. Americans accept that today and reject the brilliance of separation of powers."
WND recently reported an appeals court threw out DeLay's conviction for money laundering, stating the case never should have been filed.
The Texas 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals said prosecutors did not show that he broke the law in fundraising procedures during the 2002 election cycle. Judge Melissa Goodwin noted "the evidence shows that the defendants were attempting to comply with the election code limitations on corporations."
The justices agreed that the evidence "was legally insufficient to sustain DeLay's convictions."
They ordered him acquitted of all charges.
At the time, DeLay told WND the charges were politically motivated, the Democrats ran a politically motivated grand jury and the convictions were politically motivated.
But he lost his seat in Congress, most of the opportunities of a former congressman and endured the threat of possible jail time looming over him and his family for years – all because of the hatred of the Democrats who pursued him.
He said that unless there are changes, other conservative politicians have that threat constantly looming over them.
"I can't tell you the number of people who have come to me for advice on running for office," he told WND. "When they find out what happened to me, they have declined to run.
"They're not going to put their family through that."
Talk-radio icon Rush Limbaugh recently to explain how that happened.
"There were eight grand juries. It took [prosecutor] Ronnie Earle eight grand juries to find one that would return an indictment. That was how weak and insufficient the evidence was," Limbaugh said.
"And so the Democrats found a way to take him out politically 'cause they couldn't beat him at the ballot box. And they got their grand jury and they got their indictment and then they got their trial and they got another jury and they got their convictions. And the minute the convictions came in, DeLay and his lawyers said we're gonna get this reversed, all of this is bogus. The media threw parties of celebration. The Democrats were celebrating."
Limbaugh explained the Democrats' hatred.
"Tom DeLay's nickname was 'The Hammer.' The Democrats thought that was very bad. He was nicknamed 'The Hammer' because DeLay had magic when it came time to corral votes on the Republican side in the House of Representatives, starting back in 1995 when the Republican freshman class was sworn in and they assumed control of the House for the first time in 40 years," Limbaugh said.
As the House majority whip, DeLay "got the votes," Limbaugh said, and "because he was so good, he was unapologetically good, Tom DeLay did not worry about compromise or making the Democrats feel good or not hurting their feelings or working with them or any of that. He was hated."
Later on, Limbaugh recalled, DeLay also had enemies among Republicans.
"Tom DeLay came to Congress from a job as an exterminator. He ran a bug control company in Houston, the Sugar Land section of Texas, of Houston. So he knew well how to get rid of insects and vermin and other things. The perfect thing to do would be to go to Congress. But he was good at it, and the Democrats hated him. And so they attempted to criminalize the kinds of things that DeLay did to help Republicans get elected, to help himself get elected. And so they found a partisan prosecutor in Texas by the name of Ronnie Earle who kept shopping and shopping and shopping for a grand jury that would indict DeLay. He had trouble finding a grand jury from whom he could get a majority vote to indict."