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Why Secularism Must Prevail



The "Wall of Separation" between church and state in America must continue to stand firmly, not just for the rights of women, but for the rights and liberties of all individuals, regardless of their spiritual inclinations. Despite the constant whining of the Christian Right that Christians are being persecuted, this remains far from the case. Individuals who are not Christian or are religious non-believers face a much greater threat of losing their liberties than theocratic Christians whose influence, far from waning, is becoming stronger every year.

In the June/July 2005 issue of FREE INQUIRY Magazine, Editor-In-Chief Paul Kurtz appealed to all who value freedom for believers and non-believers alike: "We are facing a clear and present danger to our liberties in the United States by militant religionists. We need to forthrightly defend secularism." Needless to say, I wholeheartedly concur with Dr. Kurtz. My only question is how to defend it more strongly than we are trying to do now.

Organizations such as the Council For Secular Humanism and Americans United For The Separation of Church and State have their own web sites and publications featuring excellent and thought-provoking articles and essays by their editors and columnists.  But even their efforts may not be enough by themselves. They didn’t prevent President Bush, a self-proclaimed Born-Again Christian, from getting elected to a second term in office. They didn't prevent judges Brown and Pryor, known to be openly hostile to the separation of religion from government, from getting lifetime appointments to the judicial bench either.

Fortunately, the entertainment industry has some free-thinking producers, directors and writers, as the award-winning television drama West Wing demonstrated close to the end of this past season. Secularists and freethinkers were delighted to see the introduction of an openly agnostic Presidential candidate, even if some say it is "only a TV show."  It will be interesting to see if Alan Alda's character Arnie Vinick will win the election next season.

But we hope these influential folks won't stop there.  Secularists everywhere would welcome full-length feature films and dramatic biographical portraits of noted secularists such as Robert Green Ingersoll and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.  We'd also like to see some television mini-series outlining the difficulties faced by secularists opposed to the harsh doctrines of absolutist religions. Maybe, just maybe, such programs might get more Americans thinking that the American current secularist government is a very good thing after all, and they will fight to the end to preserve it.