Gunman Assassinates U.S. Congresswoman

[giblets]

When people speak of "freedom of religion" they generally don't mean that they think anything should be allowed as long as it is justified by a religious belief. A voter might object to a politician who, because of the politician's religious beliefs, votes for legislation that the voter disagrees with, but IMO that doesn't violate freedom of religion any more than putting a mother in prison because she drowned her children and claims God told her to. I wouldn't describe that as "freedom of religion being made to do battle with itself".

[Elok]

I mean, when the founding fathers wrote the First Amendment, the idea that Man's Relationship With His Creator was a personal thing made perfect sense, and it was workable because the country was overwhelmingly Christian at the time (with a number of Christian-ish deists in key positions) and, AFAIK, no real differences in policy were caused by purely religious beliefs. Nowadays...

Look at abortion. I don't think it should be a religious thing (I'm against abortion on purely secular grounds, at least insofar as any of a religious person's beliefs can be purely secular), but the religious right basically own the movement ATM so I suppose I'd best deal with it. Anyway, during the 2004 presidential debate a very emotional woman asked Kerry what he would say to someone who thought abortion was murder. His answer was what changed my opinion of him from "boring, nondescript politician" to "worthy of severest contempt, but still...sigh...better than Bush." It was the usual I-personally-believe-it's-bad-but-I-have-no-right-to-force-it-on-others spiel. Every pro-choice Democrat has it memorized, so they can try to have it both ways.

But, of course, very little thought reveals that answer as nonsense. The most charitable interpretation of that answer, from any perspective, is that he's a lying sack of crap and has no real problem with abortion on any level. The alternative is that he has deep-seated problems with basic moral reasoning. Because, if you think abortion is murder as the woman said, you're obligated to oppose it. To actually say "I think innocent people are dying, but who am I to interfere?" is a weird combination of cowardice, hypocrisy, and plain nonsense.

Not all examples are that extreme, but if their religion pushes them in any direction where the ordinary conception of to-each-his-own secularism doesn't easily apply, you can either ask them to be hypocrites or vote against their beliefs yourself. You can't separate beliefs from action where beliefs dictate the proper course of action in the first place.

[Elok]

When people speak of "freedom of religion" they generally don't mean that they think anything should be allowed as long as it is justified by a religious belief. A voter might object to a politician who, because of the politician's religious beliefs, votes for legislation that the voter disagrees with, but IMO that doesn't violate freedom of religion any more than putting a mother in prison because she drowned her children and claims God told her to. I wouldn't describe that as "freedom of religion being made to do battle with itself".

But can you expect them to go against their own convictions in the name of freedom of religion? I guess all I'm saying here is that religion can't always be a purely private and personal affair.

[giblets]

I know many issues are connected to religion in some way. I realize that when dealing with something as serious as murder, it's not reasonable to expect someone to go against their convictions, although hopefully they won't push more trivial things like not letting people buy alcohol on Sundays because of their religious beliefs. Making religion itself an issue is something I don't want, especially considering that there is no way to prove Obama isn't a secret Muslim or something and it turns into another pointless distraction from legitimate political issues. It's certainly not necessary to bring up religion because I think you can articulate a stance on, say, abortion without mentioning God.