Religion and Secular Public Policy
The relationship that never worked
In the American presidential election of 2004, faith-based policies and issues of religion were at the center of the controversy. With his religious stances on abortion, gay marriage, and faith-based education, as well as his campaign's success in painting him as a man of religious conviction, President George W. Bush commanded the pious, Christian population, which appeared in great numbers at the polls. Senator John Kerry's campaign, alternatively, painted its candidate as an intellectual, academic politician. The senator appealed to the more secular and intellectual population that, in the end, proved less populous than the pro-Bush voters. Though it is difficult to formulate a credible argument that the outcome of the election was in fact undemocratic, it is not difficult to find flaws in the election. This is one of the first times in American history that religions have almost entirely aligned themselves with political parties. Such alignment calls into question not the Separation of Church and State nor the legitimacy of the American democracy (though each issue has been raised in reaction to the prevalence of religion in government), but it calls into question the soundness of any democracy that claims secularism as an intrinsic value but whose laws and elections are shaped and influenced by religious beliefs. Because religion is the type of institution in which citizens hold unwavering belief, whereas politics and government require open-mindedness and secular, academic responses to specific social problems, the amalgam of the two institutions ? religion and politics ? is truly unethical. Not only is it dangerous for politics to apply something so absolute as reli ...