Daily Archives: November 4, 2008

Should We Be a Christian Nation?

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Despite claims from the extremes on both sides, the United States was neither founded by a group of fundamentalist Christians with the intent of creating a theocracy, nor by a group devoid of religious beliefs with the intent of marginalizing the religious.

The founders held a wide range of beliefs. Some do in fact appear to have been the type of traditional Christians that today’s Evangelicals could be comfortable with, but many others subscribed to a very different version of Christianity or Deism, and some probably didn’t believe in a God at all.

Fortunately for us, these people were smart enough and far sighted enough to build a wall to protect churches from government interference, and to protect the government from turning from a Democracy into a Theocracy. Unfortunately not everyone today is thinking as clearly as they were, and this wall is being eroded.

Just as the US government is not supposed to be creating religious doctrine for churches, religions should not be dictating government policy.

If you are not religious, are you comfortable with your tax dollars being handed over to religious organizations to help them not only in community aid programs but also in the evangelistic campaigns that are usually tightly interwoven with those programs?

If you are religious, are you comfortable with the idea that the government is helping other religions and sects, or that if this wall of separation is broken down we could one day live in a country where your particular religion or sect is marginalized by government policy, or even outlawed?

Simply put, while certain religious organizations and politicians may find a short term benefit in the marriage of church and state, in the long term it is a danger to both.

Arizona Proposition 102

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Whose rights should we take away?

If you were refused the right to do something that was important to you based on the personal or religious bias of people around you while they freely exercised their own rights to do the same thing, would you think it was right?

What if they decided that you were of such an inferior class that “your kind” should never be allowed to participate in these activities, and that stopping you was important enough to amend the Constitution to avoid the possibility of anyone letting you participate in the future?

Should such myopic social policies restricting minority rights be given the same weight as our right to free speech?

Just as in the cases of women’s suffrage and the abolition of slavery, there is no reasonable justification for denying homosexual couples the right to marry — a right every heterosexual person in the United States has.

In the state of Arizona, it is already illegal for same sex couples to marry, but rather than being fair and trying to get that law overturned, many churches and other groups are trying to amend our Constitution to prevent these unions from taking place now or in the future.

Many people think that homosexual sex is “gross”, but this is no reason to deny homosexuals the same rights we all have. If we let bigotry win, our children and grandchildren will be ashamed of us, and rightly so.

Please join BetterThanFaith.com and the Secular Free Thought Society of ASU in voting no on Arizona Proposition 102, California Proposition 8 and any other similar propositions in other states!

Religion in Politics: Should We Care?

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Article VI, section 3 of the Constitution states “…no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States”, and so far we have been wise enough to leave that section in place. More than two centuries on, we still refrain from officially requiring candidates to profess any specific religion, or any religion at all. For better or worse though, we do have a religious test from the voters.

It is sad that today, the day that we will (if the polls are accurate) elect the first black President of The United States of America, people of specific religions are still shunned by the electorate in most areas, and most of those who admit to not believing in any religion remain political pariahs.

Is this the way it should be?

After the last Canadian election, their new Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, ended his victory speech with the words “God bless Canada.” This resulted in a huge outcry against this kind of insertion of religion into politics. In the US today it would seem very normal, but in Canada and other countries with a strong separation between church and state, a candidate’s religion is only relevant to the extent that it affects policy decisions.

Not only is it unfair to reject a candidate based solely on religious beliefs, it is also very dangerous to vote for a candidate based on professed religious beliefs.

It is difficult to even trust politicians’ stated views, much less to extrapolate their views from their purported religions and then take it on faith that they will act in accordance with your conclusions.

Instead, just as our politicians should be putting the best interests of their country and constituents ahead of their own religious beliefs in matters of public policy, voters should be willing to overlook the religious beliefs of a candidate and vote on the issues.

A Muslim, Mormon or Atheist who will faithfully serve the best interests of your community is more worthy of your support than someone who claims to share your religious beliefs but will gladly sell your community out to the highest bidder.

Although politicians overall don’t have a good reputation for honesty and reliability, there are good candidates out there of all sizes, shapes and beliefs. We must be willing to vote not for the slickest politicians or the ones who claims to be most like us, but for the ones who share our vision for the future of the country.

Please, vote on issues not image.