What Should Obama's Priority be After Inauguration?

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By Annie Laurie Gaylor, Co-President, Freedom From Religion Foundation

Secular activists and nonreligious Americans have been steeling ourselves and lowering our expectations, in recognition that our causes and issues likely will not be showing up on Barack Obama's list of priorities.

We've even been making excuses. After all, the next president will inherit an unenviable bottomless pit of problems, from the Iraq war and broken infrastructure to the unprecedented nosedive of the American economy.

But those of us who espouse secularism should not sell ourselves, or our cause, short. Many of the problems that Barack Obama will surely rank as priorities have their roots in religion, and its entanglement in government, such as:

The Gaza slaughter. Such violence has only faith--the devout belief that a god gives or takes away land--to blame.

The Iraq war. It was a logical outgrowth of the Bush Administration's "Operation Infinite Justice." Bush initially referred to his post-9/11 retaliations as a "crusade," a gaffe he quickly retracted, but not before the Islamic world took notice.

Embryonic stem-cell line limitations. The only reason Bush froze embryonic stem-cell lines, crippling and delaying American medical and scientific research, was to kowtow to the Roman Catholic Conference of Bishops and assorted religious-right lobbies. More than 70% of Americans firmly support embryonic stem cell research. Congress supported it. Even Nancy Reagan supports it! If there was ever an object lesson in the harm of basing science on faith, it is these senseless vetoes by Bush.

The global gag rule. The cut-off of international family planning funding to any health clinic even mentioning abortions was first imposed at the behest of the Vatican in 1984 by Pres. Ronald Reagan. It was rescinded by Pres. Clinton, then re-imposed as Pres. Bush's first action as president to placate the religious right, once more creating acute and unnecessary misery around the world. Likewise, faith-based AIDS funding (some of which has gone to the ministry of Obama's invited inaugural minister, Rev. Rick Warren) has been used to proselytize and deny condoms.

The environment. Environmental degradation, global warming, lack of federal regulation of despoilers and polluters all worsened not just in the corporate take-all free market, but because of the religious philosophy first openly espoused by James Watt. Many in the religious right truly believe God gave America and corporations dominion over the planet, and that all we really need to worry about is the condition of our souls in the next life, anyway.

The past Administration's demonstrated lack of concern for human law or humanity is rooted in a reactionary religious contempt for this world. God, not government, cares for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the lost and wounded lives of Iraq, Afghan and Gazan citizens, for the condition of our planet, our bridges, for fairness, equality, safety, regulations of corporations and Wall Street . . .

The judiciary. Obama's election averted the threat of a worsening Supreme Court, which currently has a 5-4 majority pulling in the wrong direction. But Bush's unprecedented appointments to the federal judiciary, his replacement of swing vote Sandra Day O'Connor by true believer Samuel Alito, were faith-based appointments. The GOP litmus test is not only antiabortion but would exclude anyone who would consider ruling that "under God" should not have been inserted into the once-secular Pledge of Allegiance.

The greatest unlauded power of the U.S. President is really the power to set an example and tone. Obama has already made some missteps, inviting a fundamentalist, antigay preacher to open his swearing-in, pledging to rename the "faith-based initiative" to the "faith-based council," instead of rescinding Bush's unpopular executive orders. Pres. Obama should dismantle Bush's disastrous, divisive and wasteful "faith-based" giveaway, intended to court theocratic votes and reduce secular welfare services. Obama needs to rebuild the Jeffersonian "wall of separation between church and state."

Barack Obama needs to run his government on facts, reason and the U.S. Constitution, and let religion take care of itself.
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