Obama aiming for the Faith-head vote

From the BBC News site:

"US presidential hopeful Barack Obama has said he would expand George W Bush's programme of involving religious groups in government initiatives."

Just brilliant. So not only have the Democrats (supposedly the US' more liberal party) picked the candidate least able to beat McCain, he's getting into bed with the same fundamentalist lunatics as the Bush administration. Why is it that not one US politician can seem to remember that the United States is supposed to have a complete seperation between church and state? It's written down in the Constitution after all, not to mention countless other pieces of paper (Treaty of Tripoli anyone?). Jefferson himself was an Atheist, or at least a Deist - at any rate he clearly didn't envisage a US where religious groups set the national agenda.

I believe politics students have a word for states where faith determines policy - they're called theocracies.

A question I'd have to ask about this 'council' of religious groups that young Barack is planning. Will all groups be given equal representation? I mean, you could just have all Baptists, the dominent denomination in the south. Let's not forget the Methodists, or the Lutherans. What about the Catholics, I imagine they'd need representation too. Better not leave out the Jews (Orthodox and Reformed, naturally) - or the Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Scientologists, etc, etc, etc...

O-barmy

Obviously this could get very very complicated. Well, if they all claim to be the One True Faith, I guess they'll have to be given some representation. Then there's us atheists and agnostics - obviously atheist citizens in the US can expect to be properly represented on this council (though since this is the US, maybe not). Yes, this make take some thought...

To be entirely honest, it's not as if I wasn't expecting this. Religious fundamentalism would appear to be growing so rapidly within the United States' interior that you would be forgiven for thinking that the entire nation is intent on throwing itself back into a dark age - one with cars and fast food, obviously. Therefore we see the inherant flaw with democracy; the winning candidate will only ever be as good as the electorate. Right now the members of the electorate Obama is trying to appeal to are the conservative religious types - hence this new statement suggesting that one of things I hated most about the Bush administration may not be disappeaing for good come November.