As much as our country’s founders abhorred any religious tests for public office, some presidential aspirants today are so pretentious in their Bible thumping ostentatious piety they have become obnoxious. Huckabee is so over the top that he truly believes his recent popularity in Iowa is an act of God. He has played the Jesus card to perfection just like “w” did. He has manipulated his evangelical Baptist bigot klan of Iowa into believing that Romney’s Church is a satanic cult. That is what it has come to in the republican party of today and now Romney is trying to out-Jesus Huckabee. We have seen the destruction inflicted on America and the world as a result of a dogmatic president who believes he was divinely chosen and that God urged him to start a war. Romney states that “freedom requires religion” but completely ignores the bloody history of his own Church being deprived of freedom and their lives at the hand of other American religious zealots. His statement is so patently false it doesn’t deserve refutation. Those countries that have separation of Church and State have the strongest organized religions. Why would we want to return to the religious repression of centuries ago? If Romney is going to attack humanists and secularists as “wrong,” then let him explain why they were so far ahead of his Church on the great moral questions of the last half century. They said God had cursed the world’s dark skin people and rejected the civil rights movement up until they were just recently forced to accept blacks as equals and allow them in their Church. Let Huckabee explain why he rejects evolution, believes the planet is less than 10,000 years old, and how that might influence his science policies as president. Would he apply the harsh Old Testament punishments for homosexuality and adultery?

These politicians often complain about the religious intolerance of secular liberals. But the truth is liberals have been far more tolerant of religious believers in office. They elected John Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and now have Harry Reid, Senate majority leader which makes him the highest ranking Mormon officeholder in American history. I can’t see any prejudice about Reid’s religion. A secular society like ours doesn’t imply disrespect to religion. Our Constitution guarantees religious freedom through the establishment clause of the 1st Amendment which is the basis of the Separation of Church and State. But when candidates like Huckabee and Romney try to redefine it by claiming their faith gives them preeminence to power then someone needs to speak up.