Sarah Palin, speaking at a religious gathering in Kentucky, unwittingly summed up what is, for me, the biggest reason her ignorance is so dangerous:
Really, it is our solemn duty. Praying for true spiritual awakening to overcome deterioration. That is where God wants us to be. Lest anyone try to convince you that God should be separated from the state, our Founding Fathers, they were believers. And George Washington, he saw faith in God as basic to life.
And please look again at this: “Lest anyone try to convince you that God should be separated from the state, our Founding Fathers, they were believers.”
Quite a non sequitur. Some of them were indeed believers (but not 20th-century style fundagelicals), believers who believed religion and government should be separate in order to preserve their own religious freedom. (Article VI of the Constitution: “The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”)
I may not always approve of the man, but Barack Obama gets this one right, with what used to be considered common wisdom, and still ought to be:
One of the great strengths of the United States is… we have a very large Christian population–we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.
Ideals worth preserving against assaults like the above.
D.S. al fine: “Some of them were indeed believers (but not 20th-century style fundagelicals), believers who believed religion and government should be separate in order to preserve their own religious freedom.”
