What Separation of Church and State?

One of the big issues concerning me these days is separation of church and state, or keeping government from preferencing one religion over another whether by enacting laws or openly embracing one faith to the exclusion of all others.

There is a lot of confusion in some people's minds about what this means. They see their religion as an integral part of their identity and they have freedom to express their religion. What they miss is that they have the freedom as an individual to believe whatever they want, but when they are elected to a political office, they take on an official persona who should remain neutral in matters of religion. This is not to say that they lose their religion, cannot use their beliefs to inform decisions, or express their religious beliefs. I don't think it's that difficult for people to learn to take a neutral stance and be accepting of difference. It just takes using some empathy, realizing different people exist and it's okay, and learning some appropriate vocabulary to be more inclusive. It would also be great if people could learn to separate what they might consider a personal morality (i.e. one that they apply to themselves) and a public morality (i.e. one that applies broadly to society). Moral questions that can only be supported by religion on the grounds they upset your god don't apply.

The concept, in my mind, is not hard unless you are an authoritarian who is trying to get converts, thinks the supernatural is at work in our lives, and wants to create laws to appease a deity.

Enter our 45th president, who, I think it's safe to say, has never held a firm conviction in his life. He seems to pander to whatever audience is in front of him, whoever is giving him adulation right now. And one of those constituencies is evangelicals. They have been gushing on the radio about how wonderful Trump is and how their god is happy to be back in the White House.

Honestly, I can't tell if these people are delusional and don't realize who this man is, or if they are grifters looking for money and relevance, or to what extent they know he's not a True Christian but he will give them the policies they want (or at least lip service). And frankly it doesn't matter which category they are in; their actions are the same.

Enter Richard Land ecstatic that the Religious Right has "unprecedented access" to Trump and the White House. He likes that he can walk around the halls of power and meet other evangelicals and talk to them. And even more, they "have had a big impact on decisions... on policy."

What is scary to me is that these are people whose decisions have no basis in our shared reality. They derive the underpinnings of their beliefs from a book written by bronze and iron age people with questionable morals and lack of understanding of basic science. The all-knowing, all-powerful being was unable to communicate the correct order of creation or tell us that rape was wrong or that we shouldn't enslave our fellow humans. And sure, evangelicals pick and choose as much as any Christian which parts of the Bible they want to follow, but that doesn't make it any more rational.

Anybody who values true freedom of religion should be worried about its destruction in this administration. These are people who twist the word freedom to mean "everybody should do what I think is right (that I attribute to my god)."