Our Constitution clearly establishes the notion that religious beliefs have no place in our laws or government. Our "founding fathers" were of several different beliefs and were aware of the problems caused by religious dissension among the populace, as well as as a result of a "state" sanctioned "official religion". Wanting to avoid that in our new republic, the founders made no reference to deity in drafting our Constitution. The law of the land must apply to all people, of all beliefs and no beliefs at all -- paraphrased from Thomas Jefferson, John F Kennedy, Barack Obama, probably others.
"What strikes me as funny is how the über-religious in the US fight to tear down the wall of separation, not realizing that they are weakening themselves. What stands between their religion being dominant and, say, Muslims? This is one of the many problems with having religion intertwined with government. As long as it's your religion, hurray. But see those guys over there praying in a place of worship with slightly different architecture from yours? They feel exactly the same way about their religion as you do about yours. The only way to protect your own freedom of religion is to protect your freedom from theirs.
There are two ways to do that. You can either emulate the Taliban... or you can make sure that laws, politics, and government are kept wholly and, I dare say, fundamentally separated from religion."
I do not want our government to emulate either the Taliban or North Korea. Do you?
quoted material from 2010 Slate Op-Ed
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