By Eric Cooper Santa Monica
Lloyd, I’m kind of baffled by your latest article (“Monica Lewinsky, God and the race,” page 4, April 19-20) about there being too much talk about faith in the presidential race.
As a TV writer I’m sure you are aware that a character’s beliefs and values are what motivate him to action (or inaction) and therefore define one character from another.
Why would you want to remove that from the political arena? Don’t we want to know what the candidates stand is on social issues, abortion, future Supreme Court nominees, … etc?
The answers to those positions often goes to the heart of someone’s religious beliefs or non-religious beliefs.
To prevent that expression or to confine it to an inferior position in the debate, or to place conditions on when faith can be talked about smacks of discrimination and censorship to me.
If anyone is blurring the purpose of “separation of church and state” it’s you. It’s there to protect our ability to speak out freely about our religious beliefs, in a public forum, if we so choose.
And it’s to protect us from columnists like you who ask for it to be muzzled.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 24, 2008. Read the original PDF.