I was just thinking about the confluence of two trends of religion in the public square: the banning of expressions of religion in public (e.g. Ten Commandments in courtrooms, Nativity creches on public property, etc.) and the accusation that a cleric telling a member of his flock who happens to be a politician that they are a poor adherent of the faith.
First, what exactly was the intent of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment? To protect religion from government interference or to protect government from religious interference? Obviously, the intent was the former, but we’ve come to the point where the courts say the latter.
Second, which is more dangerous to the democratic rule of law and our great republican form of government: religious belief or the myriad of other belief systems engaged in pressuring politicians to vote their way (e.g. Pro-abortion activists, radical leftists, strict libertarians, and so on)? In fact, isn’t religion actually an aid to democratic republican rule of law?
So why is that religious belief is singled out as a particularly pernicious danger? Why aren’t the courts telling schools to stop teaching Marxism or radical environmentalism? Why isn’t NOW told to stop pressuring politicians to vote the way they want them to, rather than “representing the will his constituents”?
Those who hold firm religious convictions are now protrayed by the elite secularists as akin to the slavering hordes battering at the gates of civilization, trying to drag us back in into the Dark Ages of ignorance and superstition. This is the culture war we are really facing, the one in which all the individual battles have their source.
