His Primary Point

I came across this opinion piece posted on CNN by a comedian/personality named Dean Obeidallah - I've never heard of him either, but that's no reason to discount him. Per usual, the headline of the piece was eye-catching and sucked me and many other readers in: Santorum wants to impose "Judeo-Christian Sharia." Ok, let's see.

Since Obeidallah opted to use such an extreme and loaded term to characterize Santorum's positions, I'll go ahead and label Obiedallah as a paranoid, polemic secularist who's out to insure that religion finds no place in politics. Ok, that's done now.

Read the short article for yourself before I launch into my reactions...

Obeidallah suggests Santorum's desire that legislated laws be in accordance with natural law - "a higher law" or "God's law" in Santorum's words - is on par with Sharia Law. He calls it "Judeo-Christian Sharia."

This is outlandish and wild, but I get it. The basic concept is the same for Santorum as for Islamic leaders: leaders of a country explicitly cite their religion in order to justify the laws they make. Straight forward enough. The problem comes when you realize that Obeidallah never affirms or advocates religion at all.

He goes after the specific ramifications of how Santorum's positions can be justified by his Christian faith and spells out the aftermath: rape victims have to carry the child to term; gay marriages would be annulled; no funding for birth control; outlawing pornography. I'm not saying I agree with all of these potential actions that a President Santorum would take (for example, I wish rape victims could be supported and helped in a way that would encourage and embolden them to have the child but it shouldn't ever be legally required). However, I give Santorum a lot of credit for asserting his faith and admitting outwardly that his positions on issues are informed by his faith.

The trouble comes when you realize not all of America is Christian. Even if a good majority of it is Christian, not everyone is. You can't legislate an official religion; you can't shove a form of belief down Americans' throats. Furthermore, it's dangerous to claim that you have a conclusive understanding of "God's law" and use that to produce layers of legislation.

However, to an extent, this country has a centuries-old tradition of a civil religion - a vaguely Christian, sort-of Deist God who benevolently protects the country and is invoked by its leaders, without tension, in times of trouble and joy alike. I couldn't articulate the specific correlating religion to that God, but surely, there is some kind of consensus Christian values and sensibilities that are inherent within it that Americans would affirm.

There are disagreements on specifics of beliefs and positions on social issues between religions, between denominations, and even within a specific denomination (yay Catholicism!). But there is a solid overlap in the middle of all these venn-diagram-circles. Again, I lack the grounding to specify what all is in there, but I'd venture to guess that most Americans - secularist, spirituals, atheists, and non-Christians - can get behind a lot of what's there in the middle.

My major beef with Obeidallah comes not with his connecting Santorum to Sharia Law and not even with his disgust toward the policy ramifications of Santorum's positions. My beef is that Obeidallah is hostile toward any influence of religion on political activity, and that's a horrible shame.

Goodness doesn't come from the thin air; it comes from our Creator God who made us in His image and gave us gifts and talents with the hope that we'd freely use them to share Love in our world and grow closer to each other and to Him.

To those who would demonize religion in such a way: criticize a candidate if you think the specifics of the way his religion influences his policy are alienating to American people, but don't fault a candidate for having faith and a religion. Fault yourself for attacking religion's influence on public and social life. Fault yourself for thinking that reason can stand alone and find ways to justify laws without faith or the Truth of God. Fault yourself for becoming too much of the world and demonizing the joy and light that others gain from faith in God and the community around them that joins together to celebrate and support one another.

My hope is that Obeidallah is actually a religious man and is just keeping his faith private. If so, if that's his principle, then good for him for sticking to his guns. But in a personal opinion piece complete with your thumbnail picture and biography, can you not even let your religion in then?