Turkish Demonstrations Against Secular Government

04/29/2007

Paul Munnis

Yesterday hundreds of thousands of Turks demonstrated against allowing the Turkish government to become an Islamic religious government. They looked about them and observed what happens when Islam and Government mix and then they rejected the notion of Turkey as an Islamic State. In their view the result is always bad for the citizens of the Church based nation. Thus the Turks advocated for the complete separation of Church and State and they turned out in large masses to make their point.

In Iraq, the U.S. government is backing a religious secular government of Shiites and the result has been a civil- war against Sunni’s. The notion is so morally wrong that Americans will likely withdraw from supporting Iraq and you can be assured that this issue is quite at the heart of the matter.

At home, the Bush administration has sought to change the U.S. Constitution setting aside the separation of Church and State and thus has sparked controversy that has divided Americans over Church related wedge issues. Most Americans have rejected the idea of America setting aside the notion of the separation Church and State.

The result is that wherever the Bush Administration positions itself on religious issues it backfires creating controversy and polarizing our American citizens.

When history is written the Bush Administration will count among its major flaws in governance this desire for a Church State, something rejected more than 220 years ago by the founding fathers of our nation and upheld as necessity as our nation has become even more pluralistic.

When John Kerry, a Roman Catholic, was running for president in 2004 he was heavily bashed by the GOP and by members of the Bush Administration because he would not force his Catholic views onto the nation as a matter of Party policy and he said so many times. He said that he had a right to his beliefs but not the right to demand that others accept them -- especially as a condition of being an American citizen and as president of the U.S. He affirmed the pluralistic nature of American society and the need for Separation.

Not so with the Christian Right and many others who demand that in a pluralistic nation Christianity be made the dominant State religion and that Christian prayer be practiced daily as part of the public school day. They have tested this with demands to be allowed to pray over the loudspeakers at football games for the safety of the players, and to force students to participate in religious holiday activities.

The Turks have it right and their military is backing them up – “keep religion out of government.” Also -- guarantee individuals the right of free religious expression and religious gathering, plus assure all citizens freedom of group and private worship.

Whenever the separation of Church and State has not been provided for by a government then that government has failed and collapsed.

Our founding fathers had it exactly right and the neo-cons have it exactly wrong. The Turks have it right too.