Why the Least Religious Candidate is Going to Get My Vote

In his 2006 book, "The Theocons: Secular America Under Siege," Damon Linker tells the story of the rise of the theocons, who were and are mostly Catholic or Orthodox Jewish politicians and political theorists who orchestrated the reintroduction of religion into American politics. Their goal was very plain: make America the nation Under God again.

They reacted harshly to the moral revolution of the 60s, they pray every day, and they see many things tolerated today that they consider to be moral affronts to God. Their supporters are today known collectively as "the religious right-" voters who vote mainly based on issues that offend their theology such as abortion, gay marriage, and the teaching of science in public schools.

The 2008 election is shaping up to be another feeding 2000-style frenzy for the affection of millions of strongly religious voters, who are mostly evangelical Protestants. While the Republican candidates have obviously already forfeited their intellects in favor of appeasing the American Bible-thumper (who could forget the "raise your hand if you do not believe in evolution" question from a recent GOP debate?), the Democrats are also leaping with vigor upon the religion crowd. Has John Edwards ever juxtaposed two sentences in speeches that did not include the word "God?"

But even Edwards' more religiously moderate companions are joining in. Note the ease with which Obama dismisses the religion of his family (his father is an ex-Muslim atheist and his mother is a non-practicing Southern Baptist) in favor of frequent references to his affinity for the African American Christian spiritual tradition. Behold Hillary Clinton's ability to turn damaging questions about her coping with her husband's adultery into a vote harvesting reply about how her religion helped her in her darkest hour.

I unfortunately do not find such things terribly endearing in a candidate. In fact, I find that pandering to the evangelical crowd rather turns me away.

The Christianizing of the political process is extremely alienating for non-religious American voters like myself. What are we do to when a candidate calls for a national day of prayer? Suppose that we like a candidate for other reasons, such as her or his foreign policy or ideas about the economy, but then at a rally they have us all bow our heads for a moment? Shall I sit and twiddle my thumbs while my fellow voters appeal to the god who never seems to show up to register?

But it is not mere personal offense that makes a religious outcome for 2008 so discouraging; instead, I am far more concerned about the ramifications on the United States as a whole.

Let me be clear that I am not an alarmist in the sense that I think that we are plummeting towards a totalitarian theocracy, nor do I believe that atheists will find themselves standing before American inquisitors any time soon. However, the truth is, that while scenarios like those I just described never materialize in an instant, they do always have a first step.

That first step, I feel, is the federalization of one of religion's greatest crimes: its day-by-day dehumanization of the American homosexual. This particular crime's most potent embroys were fertilized under President Clinton with the Defense of Marriage Act and the strict enforcement of the "Don't Ask, Don't tell." With the former, homosexuals were told that, citizens though they may be, the federally-recognized act of civil marriage was denied them on account of the book of Leviticus. With the latter, homosexuals were carefully reminded that, even though they want to give their lives in defense of their homes, they can't because other soldiers might desert their posts and defect to our theocratic enemies because of the icky queermo in the trench beside them.

The illegalization of gay marriage is an unusually polarizing issue, particularly because none of its opponents can find any legal reinforcement to it. Instead, they rely on the religious sensibilities of their fellow citizens, parroting the lunatic catchphrase that "marriage is a religious institution." Seriously? So then surely all American marriage liscences are signed by priests? Really? Well, at least the American government requires you do declare a religion when you get married, right? But then no doubt it is illegal for atheists to get married and you must have a religious ceremony, right? But if not then... how is marriage a religious institution? Most people get married in churches, sure. Many people vote at polling booths in church. Many others eat bread and drink wine in churches. Are voting and eating religious institutions?

Unfortunately, the crazed mission to deny homosexuals the coverage of the 14th Amendment found loud support among the Bush crowd, and GOP successors-to-be are lining up to one-up the homophobia of their fellow conservatives. Even Democrats tiptoe around with phrases like "civil unions."

Second, and much more pernicious, is the attempt to inject religion into public schools under the clever guise of "Intelligent Design," which is the theory that a superhuman intelligence designed cancer-prone cells, Down's Syndrome, and spines that inevitably degenerate into chronic pain and joints that always eventually inflame and dry out (but he loves you). Roundly defeated every time it comes up in court, it makes a laughing stock of its host school board and damages the prestige of science. People forget that evolution was absent from many school curriculums until as late as the beginning of the Space Race. Why did evolution come back? Because people realized that indulging superstition was a cute and harmless tactic at first, but when it came toe-to-toe with the Soviet space program, it was time to stop screwing around with superstition and give schoolchildren a real science education.

Pro-ID candidates will damage our nation's schools and raise a generation of children who are thoroughly unprepared to compete in the scientific community. Which is more useful when sending your child off to medical school- his or her knowledge of the processes by which viruses evolve into more potent strains, such as antibiotic-resistant polio, or his or her faith that (with just enough prayer) God will swoop down from the skies and save your patient from the operating table. In fact, why even go that far? Wouldn't a well-intentioned, religious doctor lovingly murder his patients after admonishing them to go to Christ, thereby dispatching all sorts of ill men and women off to eternal paradise?

Third, and closely related, is the attempt to outlaw the American biotech sector by clamping down on "stem cell research." When a conservative (or conservative voter-loving) candidate tries to tell you that he doesn't want to "end life to save life," kindly ask her or him what he or she means. Inevitably the response will be something like "well an embryonic stem cell is a potential life form." Aside from the fact that an embryonic stem cell is an inert blastocyst that will inevitably be disposed of anyway, let us take that answer at face value. When your idiot candidate gives that response, you must remind her or him that, if that is the case, then we must all be hauled off to prison because (as Sam Harris puts it so viscerally), every time your candidate scratches his or her nose, millions of potential life forms are obliterated in a vast holocaust of unborn cellular nucleii. Our technogical advancement is so great at the moment that literal every cell in your body is a "potential life form."

Also try not to forget that a vote against stem cell research is a vote in favor of Parkinson's, cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's, diabetes, and a whole host of other tragic (and costly) diseases that could be treated with stem cell therapies. Your moral weak stomach is all well and good in the privacy of your own cathedral, but when it comes time for you to descend into dementia, who will you trust more- the Intelligent Designer who created Alzheimer's-prone brains in the first place, or the medical science that gets paid to cure you?

Anti-abortion policies like the notoriously vile Mexico City policy (which so stringently denies foreign aid to foreign hospitals that promote on-demand abortion that some clinics lose all of their American funding over having the word "abortion" in their pamphlets- even if only to say that they don't offer them) immediately discredit a candidate in my eyes. Look, I hate to gloss over the abortion debate so glibbly, but here is the truth- Roe v. Wade was not a Satanic liberal takeover that caught the American public off guard. Roe v. Wade was a 7-2 decision vastly supported by both solid Constitutional law and public opinion.

The theocons found their most profitable crystallization after the 7-2 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion on demand. Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, found themselves united in fury over the notion that women should have control over their entire bodies. Hand-in-hand, millions of voters went to the polls in flag-waving support of the good old days when women died or were mutilated in back-alley abortions and rape victims had no recourse other than to raise their fatherless children without any home of proper child support. For many voters, abortion is the trench in which Judeo-Christian morality lives or dies.

A candidate who opposes all abortion a priori is offering their heart and soul support of rusty coat hangers. Because keep this in mind: outlawing abortion is not going to make abortion go away. We have real-life examples: in certain nations in South America, when abortion went from legal to illegal, the number of abortions did not decrease greatly. The only statistically significant change was the skyrocketing number of women who died or were rendered infertile or mutilated from illegal abortions. Furthermore, the other colossal truth that I hate to put so bluntly is this: a fetus is not a living human being. If a fetus is a human being and abortion is murder, then a miscarriage is unintentional manslaughter and drinking coffee while pregnant is child abuse. If a fetus has a soul, does it divide into two half-souls when twins are formed? Should police officers carry around pregnancy tests to see if women driving in the carpool lane are actually speeding for two? And so forth. The man or woman whose religion leads them to oppose abortion on demand has lost the vote of both the genuinely pragmatic voter and the genuinely reasonable voter. Unfortunately, the "other" voters number in the tens of millions.

To the three candidates who made fools of themselves by publicly declaring their opposition to evolution (Tancredo, Brownback, and Huckabee), better luck next time. To John Edwards, who wants to legalize school-sponsored prayers as appropriate memorials, thanks, but no thanks. To Mitt Romney, who favors teacher-lead prayer in public schools, you haven't got a clue.

Where will my vote, the vote of the non-religious voter, go? I haven't decided yet. Are there candidates who look better than others? Yes, definetly by a long shot. All I will say is this: you, the American voter, have a vested interest in voting for a secuar government. Of course, you won't get the chance to vote for an atheist for a long time, but you will get the chance to vote for whomever will be the least eager to superimpose the evangelical Protestant mindset over their platform statements.

Do you want a candidate who wants to hurt our military by denying homosexuals the right to serve? Do you want a candidate who wants to make it illegal for the American biotech sector to remain competitive by denying federal grants to research for some of the most profitable medical therapies of all time? Or do you want a candidate who wants to stop making law based on the Bible and start making law based on the Constitution? I, for one, look forward gladly to the day when we openly debate the merits praising God every time something good happens and chastising ourselves for disobeying Him every time something bad happens. Hopefully, there are enough non-religious voters out there to be genuinely impactful on how much Bible-thumping goes on on the Senate floor.