Bye Bye Barry by Joel S. Hirschhorn (Centrist Liberal Libertarian)
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Topic: Presidential Campaign 2008
Religion and the Constitution: The Real Battle We Face It should have been Separation of Church and State AND State and Church: Politics and Religion should not share the same bed.by EJ Moosa
(Libertarian)
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Religion vs. the Constitution: The Real Battle we Face
This last week has been quite revealing in both the democratic and republican races for President. Rumors are flying that Barrack Obama is indeed a secret Muslim, and will refuse to admit it, and hopefully patriotic religious Americans will not support him(any ideas who would repeat such a rumor).
On the Republican side, we have a high profile Mormon, Mitt Romney, and a former preacher, Mike Huckabee, taking shots at one another over their faiths. Other candidates, like Alan Keyes, have declared us to be an immoral people. Are we really going to elect someone to become President because of their religious beliefs? Do we want someone with the force of government to change our morality?
Religion was a lot more powerful and permeated more lives 150 years ago before government took away it’s role. Government took away the schooling of the American children, creating public schools funded at taxpayer expense. Then it took away the social safety nets, creating social security, welfare, and other programs, where in the past people turned to the local churches. This action removed the need for a person to adhere to the religious groups' wishes if they wanted the aid or support.
Government got into the marriage business by first requiring a license for couples married in churches, and then proceeding to perform the ceremony itself(government should not be sanctioning any marriages). Next, it took away the orphanages by offering government programs to place children in foster homes and paying the foster parents via taxpayer money.
Then, on the moral front, government has tried to legislate morality. Prohibition was tried and failed miserably. The drug laws were passed, and our jails are overflowing. From there we have progressed to the point that parents are subject to arrest for swatting their kids on the butt for misbehaving.
What has happened to us? We were told that the Constitution separates religion from political influence. I have come to the conclusion that we should have had it both ways: politics should be separated from religious influence, especially at the federal level.
Maybe government did not take away the role of religion. Maybe the religious infiltrated the government to force us to change our behaviors. I happen to believe that it was both. Government moved into religious roles without calling it religion, and religion moved into government. And today we have a mess.
The moment a candidate begins to broadcast to the voters that God is on their side to gain votes, they have made it clear that they have delusions of grandeur. If you feel you must advertise God, the rest of us should conclude you do not know God.
Jesus did not work to pass laws to legislate morality. Why are candidates running for the highest elected office willing to do what Jesus would have never done? Delusions of grandeur.
If we had a President that spoke as much about our Constitution as they do about their faith, where we would be today? If we had a President that believed in the Constitution, would we have been subject to UN provisions which led us towards the invasion of Iraq? If invading Iraq was the right thing to do, wouldn’t following the Constituion and declaring war first have eliminated many of the issues we have been debating since the war started?
I am not asking anyone to leave their faith out of their decisions. I am merely asking that the Constitution come first in all public matters. I am also asking that all moral issues be left to the individual. No matter how hard you try, one cannot legislate morality. So let’s leave the morality issues to the church, and we as individuals can choose for ourselves our own moral or immoral behavior. Don’t worry about my soul, God will do that for all of us. For the public matters, follow the Constitution, and we will all lead better lives.
Ron Paul will follow the Constitution. He has proven this during his time in public office. He understands what government cannot do and what religion cannot do. Best of all, he has no delusions of grandeur.
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2007 EJ Moosa, all rights reserved.
Published: Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Last modified: Wednesday, December 19, 2007
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I hear this sentiment regularly, but those who make this argument fail to understand the role of "religion", or the influence that it has over every single person. People who make the argument, such as this author, misunderstand both how "religion" works, and misunderstand the extent to which law is nothing but the "imposition" of someone's "morality". Allow me to explain.
First, people such as this author seem to view "religion" as being something we hold in one "bucket" of our lives. Politics goes in a different bucket. There's, maybe, the "relationships" bucket, the "business" bucket, and we could think of many more. The key, then, when it comes to "religion" and "politics", is for one bucket not to slosh over into the other. But the problem is that that is not the way "religion" works at all. "Religion" (I keep putting it in quotes because it isn't my choice of a word, but I'll go with it) doesn't purport to be a segment of one's life (bucket), but rather to color all of one's life, to "infect", if you will, our thinking and action in every area of life. What I'm arguing is that "religion" offers the basis for an individual's worldview. It's easy to see this, perhaps, in the candidates that we deem "religious", like Romney and Huck and Obama, say, but the fact is that the most ardent secularist is "religious" in just this same sense: he has a worldview that comes from one or more sources, just like the "religionist". To suggest that the "non-religious" worldview should take precedence over a "religious" worldview, just because we can trace the "religious" worldview back to some faith, is viewpoint discrimination, and poppycock.
The second problem is that folks like the author use a very selective list when it comes to talking about the kind of "moral" issues upon which religion should have no say in the public arena. Murder is prohibited by every major religion; for Christians and Jews, it's one of the 10 biggies. Should we not have laws against murder because they would stem from a "religious" base? Of course not, and the same would go for so very many laws that we accept as appropriate: they have their basis in "religion". For the author to select prohibition and drug laws from among a list that must number in the thousands is to be quite selective, and to really make a poor point.
And then, if we wanted, we could discuss in more detail the fact that all law is nothing but the imposition of someone's "morality" on others. It's "wrong" to drive on the left-hand side of the road in America, because to do otherwise would endange people; therefore, we pass laws, on the basis of our moral belief that endangering others is, well, wrong! But alas, I've rambled long enough already (some would say, no doubt, "too long!").
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2007 EJ Moosa, all rights reserved.