Separating Religion and Politics - In Mumbai or In Colorado Springs?

If They Want To Do It There, Why Can't We Do It Here?

It seems that India has its own problems of separation of church and state. After they've experienced too much fundamentalism and too much fanaticism, parts of the Middle East and the subcontinent now want to start separating church and state. But can they do it? After all, they're still modeling their governments on ours:

Bullets blow hole in hate politics

SAMYABRATA RAY GOSWAMI

Muslim religious leaders at a peace meeting. (AFP)

Mumbai, Dec. 2: Lakshman Prasad Jadhav has voted Shiv Sena every time since losing his entire family in the 1993 riots. But the taxi driver says last week’s terror attack did not reopen old wounds, it opened his eyes.

On November 26, Jadhav was at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus when the militants struck. “I saw a Muslim woman in a burqa running with a baby in her arms. She suddenly came face to face with a terrorist,” he said.

“He shot her and the baby without batting an eyelid. My whole worldview changed in a moment.”

The terrorists probably hoped to revive the polarization seen after the Mumbai riots and blasts of 1993, and also to an extent after the 2006 train bombings. But from priest to public, the one sentiment being expressed over and over is that the city will never again be hostage to the politics of hate.

Ah, changing worldviews! What a wonderful phrase! Unfortunately, here, in the U.S., many people don't really have worldviews; they'd rather stick to countyviews or stateviews. Seriously, who was the last person you met who knew where Mumbai was? Where Karachi was? Kabul?

As well: there are factions here desperately trying to join church and state TOGETHER! If we're learning anything from the "emerging nations", we'd better heed the call to a secularist state where religious freedom means just that: freedom to practice ANY religion you choose, and freedom from religion in that our government does not place one religion over another, no matter how many people in the government have similar religious beliefs.

Yes, a Christofascist government is not what our Founding Fathers wanted - albeit that's what our great religious leaders want us to think. Religious leaders like Rick Warren, who wants us to think that Christianity was meant for social responsibility, but really wants us all to become Christians after we receive the crust of bread.