I try not to make purely political statements, which is why I will not list all the problems Bush has given us.  There is one thing, though, that has been damaging to people of all faiths and those who have none.  It is absolutely an issue at the heart of all religious and nonreligious rights (I wish I didn’t have to make it so clear that it include us too, but that’s another post): bringing religion into government, where it doesn’t belong.

Does this mean religious people have no place in government?  Clearly, it does not.  Does it mean religious citizens have no right to petition the government based on their beliefs?  Of course not; the Constitution gives us all the same rights, including those with life philosophies that are not by nature religious.  We all have the right to freedom of conscience, and to lobby the government based on what we find important.

Bush went too far, violating the clear intent of the founding fathers¹.  By creating the Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives², an office specifically dedicated to predominantly religious organizations, he smashed Jefferson’s “wall of separation between Church & State.”  The office gave taxpayer money to religious organizations without any real attempt to ensure that this money would be used for charity and community programs only, and not used for religious purposes such as proselytizing.
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Ed Brayton, writer over at “Dispatches from the Culture Wars,” pointed out another example of the subtle (and not-so-subtle) acts that the Bush administration, at the behest of the religious neoconservative goal to rewrite history, have used to remove the skeptical views of religion from mentions of our country’s history.

I’ll let you read the specifics over at his post, but the gist of it is that Bush, at Monticello for Independence Day, quoted a passage from Thomas Jefferson – leaving out original sections which discuss a move away from supernaturalism (i.e. religion).

Actually, before you click that link, let’s play a game.  Here’s the original quote.  Guess what Bush cut out.

May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.