Camden Forgia Guest Columnist As we approach the upcoming Election Day, on Nov. 2, the voters and the candidates are faced with issues that require an alternate approach to develop an answer. The voters and the candidates must make a moral judgment, based on our religious or non-religious beliefs in order to come to a conclusion on certain issues. In every election that I have witnessed in my lifetime, religion is being hurled into the political spectrum, tangling and twisting the Presidential campaigns. I don’t care about our President’s religious beliefs. As long as each candidate doesn’t impose his religion on anyone else or incorporate their religion in the political process, then I don’t have a problem. This is where our current President has done a horrible job. President George W. Bush, in his 2000 campaign for office made repeated appearances on an evangelical talk show. He has also been quoted saying that God told him to run for office. I know that politicians like to appeal to their base while campaigning, but this is taking it a little too far. When a candidate appeals so strongly to one group of people, it can be assumed that he will exclude other groups upon election. Bush has proven this assumption throughout his administration. One of his key points is his firm stance on the issue of gay marriage. He proclaims that we must protect the ‘sanctity of marriage’, even with the rising divorce rate amongst heterosexual couples. We must not only acknowledge the need for separation of religion and politics but we must also consider the separation of politics from religion. During the campaign some ministers and priests have told their congregations that it would be a sin to vote for John Kerry. My view is that tax-exempt organizations, such as religions, should not be allowed to influence their congregation politically because they do not contribute to the political process. Bush has brought religion back to the forefront of political debate. Religion will affect voters even though religion has no place in politics. Until the citizens of this great country, can acknowledge that religion and politics should have separate places in our lives, our constitution will fail and our form of democracy will only exist as an unrealistic theory in the textbooks of the next generation.

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