It was Easter Sunday, but I had not been to church. Instead, I attended an invitation from the National Atheist’s Society to do a debate on Sunday morning in San Antonio, Texas. The debate had gone well. In fact, many atheists approached me after the debate to reluctantly admit they thought I had won.
Now, I was at the airport, waiting for my plane back to San Diego. Sitting across from me was a fellow about my age, waiting for his own flight. He introduced himself by saying that he had been in the audience watching the debate.
“You know,” he started in, “Whether or not God exists, does not really concern me. My concern is that Christians are taking over the country and violating our separation between church and state.”
I found this to be a rather bizarre statement in as much as we had each just returned from an atheist conference, open to any who wanted to participate, and there was certainly no plot from the government to close them down.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Give me an example.”
“Well, abortion. How about that one? Just because Christians think abortion is wrong, they want to pass laws against it.”
“Did you feel the same way about the March On Washington in the sixties? This was done in the name of Christianity, led by the REVEREND Martin Luther King.”
He looked quite taken back. “Ah..No…That one was OK.”
“Why was it OK? Because in that case you agreed with the cause? Let’s be clear: You do not object to Christianity mixing with politics. You only object to the discussion of certain issues like abortion.”
If we really are a democratic country and if at certain times in our history we are also a majority of Christians in this country, then we are entitled to pass laws based upon our convictions. All laws are the result of somebody’s standard of morality. If not our standard, it would only be the humanist standard. That is a religion too. It makes ultimate statements about human beings and human destiny. And it backs up these statements with blind faith.
Do not let anybody get away with this nonsensical claim that Christians have less rights to be vocal on social issues than anyone else. Our forefathers created a law which forbade mandatory state church. It did not forbid Christians acting out their convictions in the world. It was never their intention to limit religious speech to boundaries within cathedral walls.
This is Bob Siegel, making the obvious, obvious.
