"Robert Perkins" wrote in message
news ....snip...
that I want to get everyone's attention:

WHY ON EARTH WOULD ANYONE IN HIS RIGHT MIND WANT TO SEPARATE HIS
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS FROM HIS POLITICAL MOTIVATIONS?!?!?!?!?

Good grief. Religious belief is fundamentally human! Separating
religious motivation from its expression in politics is the surest way
to get yourself manipulated out of a voice in the process!


Because they realize that in order to preserve the freedom of belief for
everyone, it is wrong to enact laws that force people who do not share some
particular set of beliefs to act as if they do. Back when meatless Fridays
were the norm in the Catholic faith, for predominantly Catholic Boston to
pass a law prohibiting the sale of hamburgers on Friday would be an example
of such a thing. Laws mandating businesses closing on the Sabbath would be
another.

The only way for the State to be fair to all religions and to protect the
individual's freedom to choose their own faith is to function as if religion
had never been invented. Any laws that are motivated by a particular
religious conviction are, by definition, an attempt to mandate that all
people, believers in the dominant faith or not, behave as if they shared
that conviction. If by chance the religious view and the secular
justification on an issue parallel each other well and good, but where the
justification for a law is based solely on religious arguments it must be
opposed. Legislators simply MUST leave their religious faith in the
cloakroom with their hats and coats less they oppress all other faiths
except their own.