Separation of Church and State... Where Have You Gone...

LA TImes:

Nearly every Monday for six months, as many as a dozen congressional aides — many of them aspiring politicians — have gathered over takeout dinners to mine the Bible for ancient wisdom on modern policy debates about tax rates, foreign aid, education, cloning and the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

Through seminars taught by conservative college professors and devout members of Congress, the students learn that serving country means first and always serving Christ.

They learn to view every vote as a religious duty, and to consider compromise a sin.

When you find the CAFTA quote in the Bible, let me know. I'll be sitting over in the corner completely creeped out. I'm not a big believer in theocracy for a variety of reasons. I think politicians would do better to answer to voters than their personal conception of God (especially if, like Pat Robertson, their God condones extrajudicial murder). Constituencies matter. If you want to base your decisions on the Bible, and your constituents send you to the Capitol to do so, so be it, by all means you can do so. When those beliefs start to trump what you were sent to Washington to do, when they cut against the rights of the minority, the exercise of religious and individual freedom, and the spirit of compromise upon which government works and this nation was based, you're travelling down a slippery slope.

I think the best voice on why this is incredibly dangerous would be the Pope:

In his remarks to the Muslim leaders, almost all of whom were Turkish, Benedict acknowledged that Christians, too, had killed in the name of religion.

"How many pages of history record battles, and even wars, that have been waged with both sides invoking the name of God, as if fighting and killing the enemy could be pleasing to him?" he said.

"The recollection of these sad events should fill us with shame, for we know only too well what atrocities have been committed in the name of religion."

Amen.

Also let me say that the young people taking these classes are being duped. I mean that wholeheartedly. The "teachers" of these classes are movement conservatives from the old school (like Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly) who have no problem twisting Biblical passages to fit a pro-business, conservative agenda. It's as plain as day. I could go on for pages and pages about throwing the money-changers out of the Temple and blessed are the meek and all of it. This is a wolf in sheep's clothing if I've ever seen it. The Robertson gaffe was an example of the wolf escaping the costume.