Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is announcing plans to expand President Bush's program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and - in a move sure to cause controversy - support some ability to hire and fire based on faith. He also only supports letting religious institutions hire and fire based on faith in the non-taxpayer funded portions of their activities.
This is a man who declared in his 2004 marquee speech that "we worship an 'awesome God' in the Blue States." This is a man who in 2006 called on "liberals" to inject their religion into their politics and policies. A man who expanded on this chastisement in his early books. This is a man who pridefully recounted his recent "endorsement" of the most prurient and reactionary evangelical leaders of the country.
Obama has chosen a side in the question of separating church and state. People who are not affiliated with a religion (for practical purposes, that means Christianity) -- about one quarter of the nation's population -- are inferior. We should be overrun in national conversation, and our tax dollars should reward groups that assault those who don't share our beliefs. Obama wants to use our money to help other people bribe others into thinking differently than us.
I am proud to be a secularist. It hasn't made my personal life easy, but the truth rarely makes things easy. And I cannot countenance the idea of a president who sneers at those who share my beliefs -- and works to undermine them.
I will be proud not to vote for Obama this November. At this point, I'm not even sure I want him to win.
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