It's distressing to see Democratic leaders like Sen. Barak Obama buy into the lie perpetuated by the Religious Right that, as Chip Berlet summarized, "secularists and humanists are by definition antagonistic to religion and spirituality."
Obama recently said, "Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering the public square."
Huh? Yes, there's a big "secularist" conspiracy or movement or trend to do that in much the same way that there is a Jewish conspiracy or movement or trend to eat Christian babies, in much the same way that there's a "gay" conspiracy to "convert" young people to homosexuality.
Jeez. Obama should know better. And people like Frederick Clarkson are wise to call Obama on his sad misunderstanding.
Secularists are not by definition antagonistic to religion and spirituality. Period. It's a lie to say otherwise.
Humanists certainly are not by definition antagonistic to religion and spirituality! In fact, humanism comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes, including Christian humanism, which is venerable: it can arguably be traced back to Erasmus.
And it also needs to be pointed out that strict separationists, like myself, who believe in a rigorous separation of church and state in light of the Constitution are not synonymous with anything. Some separationists are evangelical Christians, some are secular humanists, some are Christian humanists, some are something else altogether. To be in favor of the separation of church and state is just that, by definition, and nothing more.
That's why groups like the Christian Alliance are important: they are Christians, but as far as I can tell, they are strict separationists.
In the meantime, we all need to keep trying to illuminate things for Sen. Obama and others who are quick to scapegoat "secularists."
-IseFire
