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Many of those who believe religion has a place in politics may think differently if the situation involved the election of officials belonging to other religious factions than the one to which they, themselves belong. Methods of worship are not indicative of the wisdom, compassion, or strength a leader possesses. When people cast a vote for a leader, they may be using religious influence to base the decision, but many religions share the same, or close to the same, tenets on how people should behave. Most include laws such as:

Don't kill
Don't steal
Don't lie
Be kind.

Take for example, an elected official achieving his or her position based only on religious background. What if that religion believed in terrorism? What if they believed it was acceptable to blow up abortion clinics and murder the doctors who ran them? What if they believed women should be subservient? What if they believed they could force their brand of worship on the rest of the population?

Yes, these may seem like impossibilities, but a quick study of world government will show that, throughout history and to the present day, countries that based their leadership on religion were quite often the cruelest, bloodiest leaderships imaginable. People die more in the name of religion than should be acceptable to any religious group. If officials want to pray to their god for wisdom and strength and the compassion to rule fairly, I'm all for it. I just don't believe we should be able to tell them who their god should be, or how to worship. Of those who think
religion has a place in government, I can only verbalize the silent addition of

"as long as it's my religion".

Learn more about this author, Tina Dene.
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