Let us imagine a place that has three groups of citizens: Christians, Muslims, and secular. Let us assume that the time has come to form a nation. What kind of a nation might they form?
If the Christians were Roman Catholic, you might reasonably expect them to want a nation that resembled other places that have Catholic majorities. What does the Catholic religion focus on? Male leadership? Male priesthoods? Male dominated families?
We should expect the Muslim population to look like other Muslim places. At least as male-dominant at the Catholics. Maybe no pork chops. Maybe polygamy.
And the secular population. They obviously would not be trying to establish an official religion. No talk of a Christian or a Muslim nation. Maybe democratic. Maybe not. Probably lots of science education. Not likely any laws about not marrying outside your own faith. Families, just like everybody, everywhere.
We should expect each group to try to clarify those values they hold most dear, and to write them into a Constitution. All Christian nations are not alike, nor are all Muslim nations alike. It is even more difficult to predict what a secular population would do, because there are no formal secular dogmas. Just look around! But, even so, it would be reasonable to expect each group, wherever it came on its own scale, to try to shape the nation according to their most deeply held values.
That is what Rick Santurum is doing. He wants a nation pretty much as he imagines himself to be, or as he would like to be. I rather expect that Newt Gingrich might propose different laws regarding marriage and divorce than his fellow-Catholic, Rick, might want. Any nation would want some laws regulating marriage. What do Catholics think? What do Mormons think? Or Muslims? Or secular people?
It is perfectly understandable that a person's religion will affect the kind of Constitution they might write. It is equally understandable that a secular group would not want to build specifically religious values into law.
In the United States, our founders specifically stated that the state would not be a religious state. They also stated that you could be religious, if you wanted to, but that there would be no official religion.
So here we are: a secular Constitution, and religious candidates running for office, some of whom want to make us more like their religion, and less like other peoples'. It is a messy procedure. In fact, we do have some blue laws about not working on the Sabbath, or selling alcohol on the Sabbath; not just to take a day off, but to accord with a specific religious preference or belief. In fact, some of our political candidates want to govern human reproductive practices, for religious reasons, even when, at the same time, most of the adherents of those same religions practice birth control, and sometimes have abortions. Not so long ago, it was illegal for people of different races to marry, but people ignored what their religions had taught them, and what the law said, and married whomever they damned well pleased.
We talk a good game of "separation of church and state" but, in fact, there is no pure wall between those two things. Every church is the carrier of a potential state. A nation filled with Southern Baptists would be very different than a nation filled with Roman Catholics, or Muslims, or secular people. And we are a scrambled nation with a secular constitution!
I don't want Rick Santorum to become President because I don't want to live in his kind of religious state, because he makes it plain that he wants some of his religious ideas to be built into law. In a similar circumstance, John Kennedy said that he could keep his private and public religious aspirations separate from his national policies. That is not easy to do, but he did it.
We have to be honest! For a nation like ours to work, we have to put some of our religious ideology aside, and agree with other people what we will make into law, whether those other people are religious, or not, and whether the ideas offend the Bishop or the Imam or Franklin Graham. And that also means agreeing that the law is the law, even if it gives the Archbishop a cramp.
The urge to build a religous state is not illegitimate. That is what religions do. That is what religious people do. But we are a conglomerate society, as most societies are becoming. And here, we have agreed to make room for each other.
If the Christians were Roman Catholic, you might reasonably expect them to want a nation that resembled other places that have Catholic majorities. What does the Catholic religion focus on? Male leadership? Male priesthoods? Male dominated families?
We should expect the Muslim population to look like other Muslim places. At least as male-dominant at the Catholics. Maybe no pork chops. Maybe polygamy.
And the secular population. They obviously would not be trying to establish an official religion. No talk of a Christian or a Muslim nation. Maybe democratic. Maybe not. Probably lots of science education. Not likely any laws about not marrying outside your own faith. Families, just like everybody, everywhere.
We should expect each group to try to clarify those values they hold most dear, and to write them into a Constitution. All Christian nations are not alike, nor are all Muslim nations alike. It is even more difficult to predict what a secular population would do, because there are no formal secular dogmas. Just look around! But, even so, it would be reasonable to expect each group, wherever it came on its own scale, to try to shape the nation according to their most deeply held values.
That is what Rick Santurum is doing. He wants a nation pretty much as he imagines himself to be, or as he would like to be. I rather expect that Newt Gingrich might propose different laws regarding marriage and divorce than his fellow-Catholic, Rick, might want. Any nation would want some laws regulating marriage. What do Catholics think? What do Mormons think? Or Muslims? Or secular people?
It is perfectly understandable that a person's religion will affect the kind of Constitution they might write. It is equally understandable that a secular group would not want to build specifically religious values into law.
In the United States, our founders specifically stated that the state would not be a religious state. They also stated that you could be religious, if you wanted to, but that there would be no official religion.
So here we are: a secular Constitution, and religious candidates running for office, some of whom want to make us more like their religion, and less like other peoples'. It is a messy procedure. In fact, we do have some blue laws about not working on the Sabbath, or selling alcohol on the Sabbath; not just to take a day off, but to accord with a specific religious preference or belief. In fact, some of our political candidates want to govern human reproductive practices, for religious reasons, even when, at the same time, most of the adherents of those same religions practice birth control, and sometimes have abortions. Not so long ago, it was illegal for people of different races to marry, but people ignored what their religions had taught them, and what the law said, and married whomever they damned well pleased.
We talk a good game of "separation of church and state" but, in fact, there is no pure wall between those two things. Every church is the carrier of a potential state. A nation filled with Southern Baptists would be very different than a nation filled with Roman Catholics, or Muslims, or secular people. And we are a scrambled nation with a secular constitution!
I don't want Rick Santorum to become President because I don't want to live in his kind of religious state, because he makes it plain that he wants some of his religious ideas to be built into law. In a similar circumstance, John Kennedy said that he could keep his private and public religious aspirations separate from his national policies. That is not easy to do, but he did it.
We have to be honest! For a nation like ours to work, we have to put some of our religious ideology aside, and agree with other people what we will make into law, whether those other people are religious, or not, and whether the ideas offend the Bishop or the Imam or Franklin Graham. And that also means agreeing that the law is the law, even if it gives the Archbishop a cramp.
The urge to build a religous state is not illegitimate. That is what religions do. That is what religious people do. But we are a conglomerate society, as most societies are becoming. And here, we have agreed to make room for each other.
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