Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault on Religious Freedom
As a minister in the United Church of Christ and executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Lynn has a significant stake in the battle for religious freedom, arguing that church-state separation has fostered "religious diversity and vitality"-fundamentalism included. But as a citizen who also respects the sanctity of secular law, he argues against using tax dollars for the imposition of specific religious worldviews on America's diverse peoples, whether through tax-funded, faith-based initiatives or abstinence-only sex-education. Religious freedom, Lynn asserts, means the "right to worship or not worship as you see fit," not a government obligation to boost religion. He grounds his legal arguments not in the Ten Commandments (which, he writes, "attempt to regulate religious behavior" along with civic conduct), but in the Constitution. In this political season, Lynn offers a sound alternative for Democratic leaders, who have sought to bridge perceived "values deficits" with religion instead of what the party ostensibly stands for: "a commitment to civil rights, civil liberties and economic justice."Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.