Louie Gohmert: Constitution only protects Americans who 'cling to God and guns'

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) recently asserted that the U.S. Constitution only applied to people "who cling to their God and their guns."

Speaking at a rally in Iowa for Republican Senate candidate Sam Clovis on Friday, Gohmert recalled that he had initially been blamed after Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) had shouted "You lie!" during President Barack Obama's State of the Union Address in 2009.

"Somebody yells 'You lie!' and the camera goes on me!" he told the crowd, adding that he "knew" the president wasn't telling the truth about an immigration bill.

"And so Joe was right," Gohmert continued. "That's not how a country goes forward effectively, with a leader that will play those kinds of games. You know, truth is too important."

The Texas Republican then pointed to an 1798 John Adams quote: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

"It only is fit for people who cling to their God and their guns, you know?" Gohmert offered as an interpretation to the delight of the crowd. "So, it is deeply troubling if you get in these tough situations and you can't trust your leadership."

The congressman added that he would never personally violate the rules of decorum in the House of Representatives, but he liked to take his criticism of the president "right up to the line."

"We know under the rules of the House of Representatives that our president would not lie," he quipped. "But whoever is putting those words in his teleprompter sure is."

Former Council for Secular Humanism Regional Director Austin Cline has pointed out that "John Adams didn’t write the Constitution, much less the First Amendment... Just because he might have thought that the Constitution was incompatible with a nation of secular atheists doesn’t mean that anyone else necessarily has to think the same."

Watch the video below from Sam Clovis, broadcast May 5, 2014.