People Of Faith

The term "people of faith" has always been a kind of Trojan Horse, designed to sneak one concept into public discourse while pretending to be another, particularly when it's used as a criterion for public office, as in: Would you vote for someone who was not a "person of faith"? Although it sounds somewhat inclusive, it's always been understood to exclude, for example, Wicca, which isn't a religion based on faith, but on experience. In actuality, it's never really stood for anything other than, at most, the three Abrahamic sects, xianity, Judiasm, and Islam. Since 9/11, it's clearly stood for, at most, xianity and Judiasm. And, as the recent kerfluffle over Barak Obama's religion indicates, it really only includes certain types of xianity, to wit, mainstream (white) and evanglical xinity.

Obama may think that he can win the votes of "people of faith"; he "began his presidential announcement with the phrase 'Giving all praise and honor to God,'" and he's tried in various ways to make himself attractive to evangelicals, but he's mistaken. And, as the picture of Obama's stepgrandmother (that's right, that's how far they're willing to stretch to find the "taint" of Islamic faith, all the way to a stepgrandmother, for Goddess sake) shows, it's not only the fact that he's the wrong type of xian that disqualifies Obama as a "person of faith," it's also the fact that somewhere in his family tree, there may be "people of the Islamic faith."

There are excellent reasons that our Founders wrote separtion of church and state into the Constitution. One reason for that important separation is that no matter what Trojan Horse phrases they may use, the majority religion will discriminate against anyone who doesn't share their "faith" by turning membership into a requirement to hold public office. And that's a big mistake.