Now we can talk about it.

If I thought anyone read my blog, I would tell them to go read any of the recent posts at unfogged and apostropher. I understand why this kind of talk was verboten before the election, but it feels really good to have people whose opinions I respect finally expressing it. Separation of Church and State, baby! This has always been the main reason I vote against Republicans. I care about the economy, and war, and incompetence, and dishonesty, and most of the other major reasons people have given for opposing Bush. But honestly, even if Bush had been clearly superior on all those issues, I still would have voted against him because I believe in secular democracy. I would never say that the religious right in America are worse than the terrorists or the Taliban or Saddam, but I sincerely believe the RR are a bigger threat to America. The US could afford to lose a few major cities to terrorism and still remain fundamentally unchanged, but if we become a country where religiously dictated morality is enforced by the government, we are no longer America. Bush, Delay, Hastert, Santorum, Demint and others have made it clear that they fully intend to take several large chunks out of the wall between church and state. Small issues like "under God" in the pledge and Ten Commandments monuments are the canaries in our coalmine. The major struggle of our time is not "Freedom vs. Terror" or "good guys vs. Terrorists" or "Christianity vs. Islam" or even "the West vs. Islamofascism". It is the Western tradition of pluralist Enlightenment rationalism vs. Fundamentalism in all its forms, and in that struggle, frankly I'm not sure which side the Bushies are on. We're talking about Reality-based government vs. Faith-based government. Whether the Fundies are Christian or Muslim makes no difference to me; I know which side I'm on.