A Misguided Notion

Last week, religion jumped into the political discourse once again, after everyone had gotten their fill of the Bill Clinton-Chris Wallace thing, with the noise that the All Saints Church in Pasadena is being investigated by the IRS for possible violations of rules for tax-exempt entities, citing a sermon from 2004.
The left immediately attacked it, calling it a partisan move, because there was no investigation of any of "many" conservative clergymen who blatantly pushed GW Bush, such as Ted Haggard who became something a celebrity during the 2004 election season for his bombastic support of W. (This is not the case, there are apparently dozens of active investigations by the IRS on this issue, this one just got publicized.)

The sermon was presented as a scenario in which Jesus would debate Bush and Kerry, but really it's just the preacher putting his words in Jesus' mouth, and it's not so much a debate as it is a string of diatribes. It is very blatantly anti-War, anti-"pro-life"ism, anti-Bush, anti-conservative rhetoric (read the transcript linked above to see for yourself..."Conservative politicians
...have strongly advocated the dismantling of social programs that provide a decent life for children...") but it is not an endorsement of any candidate, because as I recall there were several candidates who fit the anti-Bush, anti-war, anti-conservative agenda in 2004, notably, Kerry, Nader, Bednarik (ok, I know Bednarik was a football player, but that Libertarian's name was something like that too). But the tax-exempt provision prohibits direct political endorsements or oppositions, and this was clearly an argument to not vote for Bush, and thus in violation of the tax-exempt statute and deserving of being investigated. You can't say "well, they got away with it" as a reason for you to get away with violating rules. There are plenty of other speeders on the road, but that doesn't get you out of a ticket if you get caught. (Defenders of Mark Foley, this applies to you too. Stop saying "Clinton did it too." That doesn't make it Foley's case any less shameful.)

Then there was the zeal surrounding a soon-to-be-released documentary, "Jesus Camp", in which children as young as 4 or 5 are seen speaking and praying in tongues, begging for forgiveness in tears, and counselors teach children to "prepare for battle for Christ" and all sorts of other things that shocked and appalled people unfamiliar with the Bible and who'd never seen Christian camp before. Fear rose that we (or rather, the group(s) broadly defined as "The religious right") are training radical Christian extremists the same way Muslims train "Islamo-fascists".
The filmmakers clearly sought out an over-the-top experience for their docu, expectedly, because the spicier it is the more provactive. However, in doing so, they attempt to pass off as mainstream a fringe denomination, and it does not reflect the typical Christian camp, based on what I saw of it on television.

On September 27, Lou Dobbs, of CNN fame, wrote an op-ed entitled Keep Religion Out of Politics"
Excerpting the crux (since I assume no one follows all the links I put in): "The intrusion of religion into our political lives, in my opinion, should be rejected in the same fashion that we constitutionally guarantee government will not interfere with religion."

Politics can avoid interfering in religion because it is an external concept and we choose when and where it can go. If we want politics out of religion, we simply don't legislate it.
Religion, on the other hand, cannot be kept out of politics because religion is internal to all who participate; it becomes part of the person who practices it and since you can't have politics without people, you can't have politics without religion, if religion is practiced freely. That is not to say that politics should be beholden to religious views. Rather, religious views should not be dismissed simply because they are religious views, they should be treated the same as any other views in politics: evaluated for the utilitiarian effectiveness and compatibility with the Constitution and then applied or dismissed accordingly.
To think that religion will sunder our nation more so than extremist pundits ranting ad nauseum with minimal objectivity and our widespread social apathy is a misguided notion.

Speaking of misguided notions...last week it was reported that Tariq Ramadan, a professor from Oxford and one of Time Magazine's 100 next great innovators, was denied entry to the US to accept a professorship in the states because he had, at one point in time, given money to a French organization that DHS says is linked in some way to Hamas. Ramadan says, "I gave money...between December ’98 and July 2002, meaning one year before this organization was blacklisted in the States. And I received today a letter telling me, ‘You should reasonably have known that this organization was connected to Hamas,’ so meaning..I should have known it before the United States administration itself knew it, which is nonsense...It’s not a reason."

I don't understand, one of the supposed great minds of our time wants to come here and enlighten our college students and we say 'no, thank you' because he gave to a charity that may be connected to Hamas in some "6-degrees of Mahmoud Zahar" kind of way?

Oh wait, he's critical of the war in Iraq? Now I get it. Can't have him training dissenters at a college in Ohio. We would be remiss if we forget how that turned out last time.