If religion could take election years off, I believe that most elections would be settled in a matter of days. Most would be less inclined to run in the first place, as their personal convictions would no longer hold sway over their policies and their presentation to the electorate.
The debate over contraceptives is a matter of policy, privacy, and government intervention gone wild. Aside from the religious hues which have colored the outcry against the medical mandate mandating the availability of contraceptives, this matter is more of a federal-state issue. Despite the moral overtones of different denominations weighing on these matters, the Constitution guides the discussion most effectively as a check to the growing power of the Washington Establishment to dictate who provides what to insured clients.
I do agree with Eshman's abhorrence to presidential candidates having to speak on their faith as representatives for all believers of like dogma. I also find Rick Santorum's rebuke to John F. Kennedy's pluralism of religious adherence in government disconcerting.
I do not agree that reason can be the final arbiter of voters and voters in any election. Culture, custom, and community are informed by far greater things than one's reason, which is the product of tradition and religious belief, in many cases. Faith does not war against reason, yet faith alone has no place in the public square, and reason alone is dangerous to the public interest. We should applaud those candidates who show not reluctance to share the tenets of their faith, but we do expect them to recognize the rule of law, which includes religious liberty, for those practicing, agnostic, skeptical, or indifferent to things spiritual.
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