American People Want Religion Out of Politics

The 2004 presidential election brought religion into the forefront in Patriot Churches, recruited by the Republican Party. Sunday sermons focused on "values" issues like, abortion, evolution, and gay marriage, including references to the pseudo-historical record that America is a Christian state despite the First Amendment. How could anyone vote for a candidate who disagreed with these issues and still be a good Christian? It was a successful way to engage the Evangelical right.

The polarizing impact of Patriot Churches stopped all political dialogue, an essential aspect of democracy, since any compromise was a direct highway to sin.

Now the Pew Research Center in an August 21, 2008 release finds "Some Americans are having a change of heart about mixing religion and politics." And the people who have had this change of heart are mostly conservatives, the very people who got caught up in the waves of Evangelical fervor. "Four years ago, just 30% of conservatives believed that churches and other houses of worship should stay out of politics. Today, 50% of conservatives express this view."

The media's attention on Sarah Palin should not distract American voters from these hard facts: she is a fundamentalist Christian who believes that Creationism should be taught in schools as if it is on equal footing with evolution.

There is no longer a gap in how Democrats, Republicans, and Independents perceive the role of religion in government: over 50% of each say "Keep government and religion separate."