As Right Wing Watch has noted multiple times in the past, one of the inevitable consequences of the false history relentlessly promoted by pseudo-historian David Barton is that his lies and disinformation routinely get picked up by other Christian nationalists who then distort them even further.
The latest example came courtesy of far-right Pennsylvania state Rep. Stephanie Borowicz during a recent appearance on the "Christians Engaged" podcast, where she bizarrely claimed that that 65 percent "of all of the founding documents" came "from Jesus' words and the Bible."
Pennsylvania state Rep. Stephanie Borowicz claims that 65 percent "of all of the founding documents" came "from Jesus' words and the Bible." We have no idea what she is talking about ... and neither does she. pic.twitter.com/FFxalebWJB
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) November 30, 2023
It was impossible to tell exactly what Borowicz meant by this, but we assumed that it was a mangled reference to 1984 study from University of Houston professor Donald S. Lutz, who sought to identify which writers and sources of ideas were most cited in “the political writings of Americans published between 1760 and 1805.”
Christian nationalist activists love to cite this study as "proof" that the Founding Fathers routinely cited the Bible as the basis the Constitution and our form of government, but, as Right Wing Watch has repeatedly explained, it did nothing of the sort.
When Borowicz initially made this claim, it was easy to presume that she had originally heard it from Barton, who is largely responsible for popularizing it, and then distorted his already distorted assertions even further, as is so often the case.
Evidence of Borowicz's affinity for Barton was on display back in August when she spoke at a "Courage Conference" held in Pennsylvania, where she sat on a panel with Chad Connelly, a close associate of Barton's and a fellow purveyor of Barton's Christian nationalist disinformation.
During the discussion, Borowicz explicitly praised Barton, saying that she "loves" his work, and cited him twice; once to claim that how a politician votes on the issue of reproductive choice is a good indicator of how they will vote on every issue, and another time to recommend Barton's videos on the Second Amendment and "the biblical right of self defense."
Borowicz, who has claimed that the COVID-19 pandemic was a “punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins" and insisted that climate change cannot be real because the Bible says so, is precisely the sort of elected official one would expect to be an ardent fan of Barton and his pseudo-history. And now we have confirmation that that is indeed the case. Borowicz's stated affinity for Barton's views regarding the Second Amendment seems especially noteworthy since Barton has openly and repeatedly stated that private citizens are constitutionally entitled to own tanks, fighter jets, and even nuclear weapons.
