Bennington Banner（http://www.benningtonbanner.com）
America - a secular nation , 27 March 2012
by Joe Fontana
In 2007, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life conducted an extensive survey of religious affiliation of the American public. In sum, as a result of interviewing some 35,000 Americans, age 18 and older, the findings show a population that is shifting in its religious affiliation.
The survey also found an increase, to 16.1 percent, in those who claim no religious affiliation at all.
Those claiming to be members of the various Protestant churches stand at 51.3 percent; those affiliated with the Catholic Church, 23.3 percent, and, those professing the Mormon faith, 1.7 percent. Other religions, including Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu and other faiths, totaled 4.7 percent.
All these religious and non-religious groups today coexist in the United States, and do so peacefully. Despite the First Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting Congress from making any law respecting the establishment of religion, or impeding the free exercise of religion, our history sadly tells a different story.
On June 27, 1844, the founder of the Mormon faith, Joseph Smith, was murdered by a mob in Illinois, who believed him to be the devil. In addition, when Al Smith, the governor of New York, ran for president in 1928, scurrilous pamphlets were distributed throughout the country stating that, if elected, he would answer to orders from the Pope, and not follow the oath of office to defend the Constitution.
He lost in a landslide to Hubert Hoover.
Given this diverse nature of this nation’s religious beliefs, one has to wonder what Republican candidate for president Rick Santorum is doing when he stokes the paranoia and prejudices of those he addresses. In telling them about his faith and how it affects his thinking on such polarizing issues of family and morality, he is doing just that.
Surely, he must understand that there are vast and differing views about those issues. But then came his comment that he almost "threw up" when he heard President Kennedy’s 1960 speech reasserting the separation of church and state in this county. With that statement, it was clear that he believes the separation of church and state in American is bogus.
As he said, he doesn’t want the United States to be like France, which is clearly a secular country, and fought a revolution, in part, to achieve that status.
But what if people disagree with those faith views. What then? Do you accept the disagreement or do you, like so many other nations that have national religions (think Iran, Saudi Arabia) force agreement?
His friendly audiences may believe what he says with regard to abortion, homosexuality, gay marriage, pornography, birth control and other forms of contraception -- he opposes all of these. But does he believe one gets elected to the presidency of the United States by talking to the already converted? According to all public opinion polls, America is a much more tolerant society than the one Santorum envisions.
To his credit, Santorum’s main political rival, Mitt Romney, doesn’t dwell on his religious beliefs, but for many voters -- especially the conservative evangelical voters who are attracted to Santorum, Romney’s religion may not, for them, be Christian enough. Romney’s problem, unlike Santorum’s, is not that he doesn’t talk about his faith. It’s that many don’t believe he is a Christian Š and for that group of Americans, being a Christian is more important than the economy -- which is what Romney does talk about.
What we have seen instead is how easy it is to provoke anger and controversy when one candidate wanted to "throw up" when President Kennedy said faith should not be allowed in the public square. And voters in several parts of the country think another candidate is a member of a cult and not a Christian. Where does all this lead us? To a better country? I don’t think so.
In her remarkable, 2010 New York Times bestselling book, "The Tenth Parallel," the gifted writer Eliza Griswold describes, in sometimes horrifying detail, the collision of Islam and Christianity along the line of latitude some 700 miles north of the equator.
Some 1.3 billion Muslims mostly live north of this parallel, and 60 percent of the world’s 2 billion Christians live south of the parallel. In the many African and Asian countries she visited, brutal conflicts between the two great faiths continue. Malaysia, to cite just one example, has a program to convince all of its citizens to become Muslims, and pays them a bounty to convert. Islam is the official religion and conversion to any other faith is strongly discouraged.
In Nigeria, churches are burned by Islamists, and in return, Christians burn mosques. She cites endless other incidents of religious intolerance.
The United States remains a secular country. Every American, Kennedy said in that extraordinary 1960 speech, has an unfettered right to express his faith. "Š religious liberty" Kennedy said, "is so indivisible Š this is the kind of America for which our forefathers died when they fled here to escape religious test oath that denied office to members of less favored churches Š ."
Santorum would do well to reread Kennedy’s speech, and at the same time, read carefully Griswold’s book. Maybe then, he’ll understand that we have always been a secular nation, and the real good that comes from being that kind of country.
・Joe Fontana writes a monthly column for the Banner. He lives in Dorset, and his email address is joseph4378@comcast.net.
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