{"id":1731,"date":"2012-11-12T15:44:00","date_gmt":"2012-11-12T15:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/11\/time-to-separate-conservatism-from-religion-and-fast.html"},"modified":"2012-11-12T15:44:00","modified_gmt":"2012-11-12T15:44:00","slug":"time-to-separate-conservatism-from-religion-and-fast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/11\/time-to-separate-conservatism-from-religion-and-fast.html","title":{"rendered":"Time to Separate Conservatism from Religion\u2014And Fast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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It is far past time to separate the conservative movement in this country from it\u2019s fanatical marriage to religion, to once and for all put to bed the idea that all conservatives are Christian and that to be a conservative one must be a very religious person.\u00a0This is complete balderdash.<\/div>\n
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Recent surveys have\u00a0put the number of nonreligious Americans at 20%<\/a>, or one-fifth of the population. That\u2019s right: one out of every five Americans does not have a religious affiliation. That\u2019s not the same as being atheist or agnostic\u2014we\u2019re only 6% of the population\u2014but it is significant. That\u2019s because almost every argument for social conservative policies, which are a main course in the conservative policy dinner, are argued for on either religious lines or appeals to \u201ctradition\u201d or \u201cWestern civilization,\u201d and those almost always come back to religion too.\u00a0What that means is that there is automatically one-fifth of the population that disagrees with you, and will always disagree with you, and will very likely always support your opponent.<\/div>\n
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This is also significant beyond just politics, and just on matter of principle. All conservatives\u2014well, most\u2014and libertarians want a smaller government. But using religious doctrine to drive government policy seems to invariably lead to larger government. A government that pokes it\u2019s nose not only into our wallets, but also our bedrooms. A government that tries to tell parents exactly what their kids should be taught. A government that wants crawl into women\u2019s vaginas. This is not a small government. This is a very intrusive, very large government. The state and religion doesn\u2019t mix very well, which is why the Founders sought that clean separation between them.<\/div>\n
Read the rest here<\/a><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is far past time to separate the conservative movement in this country from it\u2019s fanatical marriage to religion, to once and for all put to bed the idea that all conservatives are Christian and that to be a conservative one must be a very religious person.\u00a0This is complete balderdash. Recent surveys have\u00a0put the number […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2251,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nTime to Separate Conservatism from Religion\u2014And Fast<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It is far past time to separate the conservative movement in this country from it\u2019s fanatical marriage to religion, to once and for all put to bed the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/11\/time-to-separate-conservatism-from-religion-and-fast.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Time to Separate Conservatism from Religion\u2014And Fast\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It is far past time to separate the conservative movement in this country from it\u2019s fanatical marriage to religion, to once and for all put to bed the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/11\/time-to-separate-conservatism-from-religion-and-fast.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rhetoric Race and Religion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-11-12T15:44:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Andre E. 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