The current Christian religious foray into politics which has been going on for the past 30 years or so beginning with Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority during the Reagan era would have everyone believing all laws should be written to follow biblical rule. The question we need to be asking is who's interpretation should we be following. Before the uber-religionists go completely nuts, please follow me after the orange squiggle...
First a little background...
I live in Las Vegas or as it is popularly known throughout the rest of the world "Sin City."
We are a city of over 2 million people. When I visit other parts of the country and meet people for the first time, it is still amazing to be asked "Do people really live there?" or "What hotel do you live in?"
The truth of the matter is there is more to Las Vegas then the Strip or Fremont Street.
Las Vegas may be considered Sin City to the rest of the world, but we have more houses of worship per capita then any other city of comparable size in the United States.
Christian churches of every size and flavor, synagogues, mosques, and temples in every language.
Your doctor might be Christian, Hindu, Moslem, Jewish, or none of the above. Nobody cares.
The preponderance of course is Christian churches. This can take the form of a mainstream church or a small congregation operating out of a strip mall store front. That is where the debate lies.
The fundamentalist church on this corner may believe the bible is the literal word of God, while the United Church of Christ across the street has another interpretation. The Pentacostal church down the block may believe women should always be beholden to their husbands even if they are being abused by him. Across town another congregation may believe in polygamy.
Some churches believe in forgiveness if you are born again (protestant) or absolved (Catholic confession), while others hold the Calvinist view of predestination.
The one common denominator is there is no common denominator for their beliefs other then some form of worship for Jesus.
If all these "Christian" churches cannot agree on an interpretation for their common faith, whose version of that faith should be voted into the law of the land?
Our founding fathers were not stupid. They put the separation of church and state into the constitution for a reason. The lack of consensus between "Christian" churches is the prime example.
A little over a century before the Declaration of Independence, the Thirty Year War was ravaging the Germanies. Germany didn't become a single nation until well into the nineteenth century. The war was nominally about religion. Holy Roman Empire and Austrian Emperor Ferdinand II had declared the Edict of Restitution upon Protestant Germany and the resulting bloodshed killed millions. Ferdinand's Catholic armies fought Swedish Lutherans under Gustav Adolph II from one end of Europe to the other. Our forefathers were very aware of that brutal war.
While most of their families came from England, a good portion also came via Holland, France, and Germany. They knew what religious strife could do to a country and its people better then we are willing to do today.
The question we should be asking all these politicians who wrap themselves in the bible, is whose interpretation of scripture is the correct one. And once that flummoxes them, ask what they have against separation of church and state.