RELIGION AND POLITICS
The American electorate is reluctant, even embarrassed, to treat the separation of church and state as a serious constitutional principle on election day. It’s not that voters don’t care whether religious zealots take over the GOP, their city council or the school board. Rather, voters have yet to fully appreciate the damage that can be done by elected officials who believe that their public actions are divinely inspired.
Democracy needs to be reconstituted by each new generation of democratic people, who must dare to stand up and bear witness in the tradition of Thoreau against the self-appointed minions of truth.
MARK P. PETRACCA
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, UC IRVINE
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