The Bible is not the Constitution

http://www2.townonline.com/watertown/opinion/view.bg?articleid=125336

But that much-bandied-about 22 percent figure is pure, unfiltered bunk, the product of a television universe that gives new meaning to the word "shallow."
The truth is that about 98 percent of Americans voted on moral values: health care, child care, a kinder world, an environmentally friendly legacy, an honest government.

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The broad swath of Americans who favor a faith-based political agenda are being intellectually dishonest. They divorce but lament the decline of the American family. They amass wealth while decrying homosexuality. They blithely order a la carte from God's prix fixe menu.
Perhaps in the turquoise and cerulean states we have realized that using religion as a political compass is impractical, intolerant and untenable. Social policy has to be mapped out on a difficult, shifting, secular landscape.

A clear, concise and critical look at the problems of faith-based government.

about a year ago in Atlanta. Haven't seen one since.
I think I am going to order one from one of the custom bumpersticker companies. It captures my feelings exactly.

It is a thin reed upon which to base a General Theory of the '04 Election. In fact, it is no reed at all. The way the question was set up, moral values was sure to be ranked disproportionately high. Why? Because it was a multiple-choice question and moral values cover a group of issues, while all the other choices were individual issues. Chop up the alternatives finely enough, and moral values is sure to get a bare plurality over the others.

Look at the choices:
-- Education, 4 percent
-- Taxes, 5 percent
-- Health Care, 8 percent
-- Iraq, 15 percent
-- Terrorism, 19 percent
-- Economy and Jobs, 20 percent
-- Moral Values, 22 percent

``Moral values'' encompasses abortion, gay marriage, Hollywood's influence, the general coarsening of the culture, and, for some, the morality of pre-emptive war. The way to logically pit this class of issues against the others would be to pit it against other classes: ``war issues'' or ``foreign policy issues'' (Iraq plus terrorism) and ``economic issues'' (jobs, taxes, health care, etc).

If you pit group against group, moral values comes in dead last: war issues at 34 percent, economic issues variously described at 33 percent, and moral values at 22 percent -- i.e., they are at least a third less salient than the others.

And we know that this is the real ranking. After all, the exit poll is just a single poll. We had dozens of polls in the run-up to the election that showed that the chief concerns were the war on terror, the war in Iraq and the economy.

The Ten Commandments for Mixing Religion and Politics

http://www.gothamgazette.com/commentary/57.lynn.shtml

A vibrant faith is one that humbles you and transforms you. Unfortunatly, especially here in the "Bible-Belt," a lot of believers selectively embrace those things they are comfortable with and avoid anything that might require change. Then these same folks have the arrogance to claim the moral high-ground and denounce me as a heretic for not measuring up to their narrow-minded standards. In faith I'm trying to humbly follow all of it, and in doing so I'm well aware of my faults. I certainly don't need others with plenty of their own faults to try to tell me about mine. (That's another part of the Bible that they conveniently choose to overlook, by the way!)

and that the founders meant it to be so because they were all Christians.

It is important to remember that at the signing, slavery was permitted and sanctioned by pious ministers teaching the bible, mostly
in the south,(as their economy depended upon slavery) and slaves
not considered to be full human beings. To be fair, the movement to abolish slavery, which was in effect for fifty years in England before it was noticed here, came primarily from the Quakers.

In order to sidestep this embarrassing situation, those who say the country was founded by Christians, and therefore is a Christian nation,deny that the Civil War was fought over slavery, but they succeed in convincing no one.

There was no problem in the south at that time ratifying the Consitution.

It took a civil war enormous in it's bloody results to change it. Also, remember that those who signed the document were the landed gentry, and also rich. and finally, let us remember that women, at that time, did NOT have the priveledge of voting and that did not occur until 1917 or thereabouts!

What is important to me is that the Constitution and those in charge of it's fate, be aware that it must be a flexible Consitution. One in which the guarantees of freedom, must be altered according to the times. That does NOT mean ammedments are to be added that take away the rights of any citizen, once more. We already did that, and the country suffered, especially the South.

We do not need Bork or Scalia types deciding that the Constitution stay firm and resolute, exactly the way it was written and ratified.