POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY LORNA DUECK IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
This is dishonest stuff.
First, it starts with a truism, faith affects politics.
Yes, just as temperament, age, literacy, and a host of
characteristics. So what?
So long as the faith part remains just a part of personal
motivation, there can be no argument.
But accepting that does not mean that expressions of faith
should become part of national politics or have a role in policy or laws.
That is gigantic leap from a feeble truism.
We simply have too many faiths and shades of various faiths
to allow that to happen without unpleasant consequences.
Just look at some of the debates and controversies in the
United States over the last few decades of the Religious Right entering
formally into politics.
Almost all of it has been a vast waste of resources and
human effort for no gain, full of hysteria and screaming and even violence.
Freedom of religion absolutely includes freedom from
religion in the public sphere.
Any politician who makes an effort to disturb our delicate
balance deliberately to make some little political gain - very much what Harper
has done - is someone to shame and disapprove of.
Otherwise, we end up with vicious morons like Huckabee or
Gingrich making outlandish statements and proposals, getting campaign funds for
doing so, and only scattering dragon's teeth in society.
Harper and Baird and Kent have already started down this
damnable path, a path which vitiates democracy and rewards special interests.
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Of course, Jesus said to render unto to Caesar what is
Caesar's, and he condemned the Pharisees for their public pretentious prayers,
saying prayer was a private matter between God and God's creatures.
But that hasn't stopped so-called Christians from trying to
railroad over others time and time again.
