Lori Lipman Brown is Director of the  Secular Coalition for America, where she serves as the first Congressional lobbyist representing atheists.  She is also a speaker on the SSA's Speaker's Bureau.  She writes a weekly blog for The Humanist; we reprint select articles with permission.

January 2 - Candidates Should Make Some Secular Resolutions

For myself, I’m keeping the New Year’s resolutions to a minimum – organize my files better, finish a book this year, and exercise more regularly.  But since we are at the start of the primary elections, I have some suggested resolutions for the presidential candidates.  How about these, candidates:

   * Resolve to promote civil law based on civil reasons, not based on theology.  This means that if you want to believe that the earth is 6,000 years old, believe away; but don’t pretend that this “lesson” is appropriate for a public school science class.  It also means that your theology regarding whether stem cells have a soul and which adults should be permitted to civilly marry will affect your own life only – not mine.
   * Resolve to talk about issues, values, and qualifications – instead of your beliefs.  Proclaiming your love for Jesus doesn’t tell me anything about the reasons why I vote for someone.  Plus, far too many voters then conclude that a Christian theology is necessary to share their values.  This is not true.
   * Resolve to include minority beliefs in your representations.  Don’t tell us that all Americans believe in a god, or that only Americans who do matter to you.
   * Resolve to stop running for pastor-in-chief.  You are running for president – not a theological leader.  We are not a theocracy … yet.

Well, candidates … any takers?

January 16 - An Honest Politician!

On January 15, Mike Huckabee admitted that he wants to change the U.S. Constitution to make it comply with his biblical god beliefs.  For years now, politicians whose motives were clearly theocratic, have hidden behind supposedly secular rationales for their attempts to change the U.S. Constitution.  Just look at the “secular” arguments for traditional (i.e. Biblical) marriage to be imposed on all civil marriages:

• Studies show children fare better with male/female parents (reliable studies actually show that the gender of parents makes no difference in their children’s well-being)
• Civil marriage rights are given solely for the purpose of biological procreation (in reality, couples who can’t or won’t procreate get civil marriage benefits anyway; and adopting parents are also permitted to marry, but only if they are a female and a male – unless they are in Massachusetts)
• Appropriate gender roles require that a marriage include a bread-winning male and a nurturing submissive female (don’t even get me started on this one!)

Now we know, thanks to Huckabee, that the real reason was, the Bible told them so … and even if you don’t share their belief, you must live under laws comporting with their belief.

Here at the Secular Coalition for America, we couldn’t help wondering what other laws would need to change to comport with Huckabee’s biblical god-beliefs:

• Would birth control be prohibited?  This would require a change to the Constitution since the U.S. Supreme Court decided such laws were unconstitutional.
• What about spilling one’s seed?  Would masturbation be prohibited … and if it were, who would be tasked with enforcing the law?  (Given his dissent in Lawrence v. Texas, Justice Antonin Scalia would welcome such a law.)
• Would blasphemy require a death sentence?  And if so, what words would be considered blasphemous?  Would only Huckabee’s specific god be included in the prohibition against taking the lord’s name in vain, or would Yaweh, Allah, Thor, and the Great Plate of Spaghetti in the Sky (all hail his noodly appendage!) be included?

Suffice to say, Governor Huckabee gives us much to ponder.