Stanley Fish's latest steaming pile of shit in the New York Times

Republicans v secular America

With blatant disregard for the first amendment, Republicans' intolerance of US secularism means things are turning ugly

Dan Kennedy
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 23 February 2010 19.00 GMT

If you're part of secular America – that is, if you're an atheist, an agnostic, a religious liberal or even a mainstream believer who thinks religion should be kept out of politics and vice-versa – then you should be very afraid of what the Republican party has in store for you in 2012.

No news there, you might say. The Republicans, as we all know, have been in thrall to the Christian right since the Reagan era. But there's something new, something more intolerant, something truly ugly in the works. And if you don't believe me, let's start with Tim Pawlenty, unassuming governor of Minnesota in his day job, fire-breathing Christian warrior and aspiring presidential candidate in his spare time.

"I want to share with you four ideas that I think should carry us forward," Pawlenty said on Friday at the annual gathering of the Conservative Political Action Committee, or CPAC. After invoking "basic constitutional principle and basic common sense," he continued:

"The first one is this: God's in charge. God is in charge ... In the Declaration of Independence it says we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights. It doesn't say we're endowed by Washington, DC, or endowed by the bureaucrats or endowed by state government. It's by our creator that we are given these rights."

. . . .

The other would be former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who fell far short of the prize in 2008, but whose legendary self-discipline has put him in a strong position for 2012.

. . ..

As New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote the next day, "Romney described a community yesterday. Observant Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Jews and Muslims are inside that community. The nonobservant are not. There was not even a perfunctory sentence showing respect for the nonreligious." Brooks – a conservative, though a secular one – warned that Romney was calling for "a culture war without end".

. . . .

(I realise that I am leaving out Ron Paul right after he won the CPAC straw poll. As best as I can tell, Paul actually does believe in a secular government. But Paul is a libertarian who's entirely out of step with the Republican party, regardless of how adept he is at mobilising his devoted followers to pack events like straw polls. He was unable to establish himself as a serious candidate in 2008, and there's no reason to think he'll do any better in 2012.)

Barack Obama, in his inaugural address, said that "our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth."

It is that simple, inclusive vision that we're in danger of losing if Romney or Pawlenty – or, God help us (so to speak), Palin or Huckabee – is elected president in 2012. In truth, the founders made it clear in the first amendment that we need not just freedom of religion, but freedom from religion, especially given that 79% of Americans believe in miracles.