When JFK ran for President in 1960, one of the "big problems" for a large number of voters was his church. The allegation was that JFK would be more loyal to his church than to his country. Kennedy's response at the time was to remind people that we have a little tradition in this country called "separation of church and state." This tradition came from our founding fathers who turned their backs on royal absolutism from Europe which was typically supported by the church. They realized that religion can be a toxic element if allowed to dominate the public square, since religion is intrinsically divisive. Most religions not not content themselves as simply promoting righteousness but rather proclaim themselves to be the unique path to eternal salvation. This type of dogmatism, tolerable in one's personal life, is clearly not the way one can forge a consensus among a diverse people.

So wisely, our founding fathers did two things regarding religion:

1) They removed it from being considered a litmus test for Presidential candidates, thereby eliminating it from public discourse, and 2) they protected religion from being controlled by the state in any way. Hence the division of church and state.

Then, in the latter part of the 20th century, a few religious dogmatists decided to turn the fervor of religious fundamentalists into political power and the religious right-wing movement was born. These folks proudly wore their religion on their sleeves and insisted that religion indeed had a place in the public square and started agitating for things like compulsory prayer in schools, "abstinence" programs for teens, anti-abortion laws, anti-gay legislation, etc. We know the score. When Ronald Reagan was elected with their endorsement, he did what most politicians do, pander to this newly emboldened group and since then, religion has wormed its way into public life much against the spirit and the legal framework of our Constitution.

Enter Barack Obama, and these same folks who shoved religion down everybody's throats are now bemoaning that Obama's religion is the "wrong" religion as if religion were a Constitutional litmus test. And all the poorly educated lemmings that pass for media political experts bought into this argument that essentially is un-Constitutional, and dare I say it, un-American.

The bottom line is that JFK was right. Religion is a private matter and has nothing to do with one's ability or lack of ability to be President of the United States. It happens to be convenient for the Obama opponents (mostly Republicans) to point to a particular pastor who has used his pulpit to make exaggerated moralistic claims using Holy Scripture. Even the dreaded "God damn America" sermon, if you actually hear the whole thing (I wonder how many Americans heard the whole sermon) was a lesson on morality using selections from the New Testament. Hardly anything most preachers don't do on a routine basis. Rev. Wright happens to be on the more hyperbolic side of preaching technique, but what he says on a regular basis and on that particular day in question is not very different from what other preachers say on any given Sunday. The juxtaposition of God damn and America, of course, makes it very convenient for right-wing America to exploit as it sounds, taken out of its religious context very much like the opposite of the secular "God bless America" people are so used to hearing. So it has the effect of being able to shock people's sensibilities and their sense of patriotism, which is the whole idea behind the right-wing smears. The use of hyperbole and shock language is very common in Churches, all churches, but especially the Christian and Muslim faiths, something those two faiths share in common. But turning religious admonitions into political speech is indeed very dangerous and not part of our historical American tradition.

It is the American tradition of separation of Church and State that needs to be upheld, rather than digging deeper into our candidates' religious backgrounds, looking for nuggets to use in a political campaign. That is one of the many things that makes us different from the terrorists we are supposed to be fighting. Most of the terrorists use religion as a method to incite people to kill, justifying themselves as morally superior to those who do not believe as they do. That is the kind of society they wish for the world, which is what makes them dangerous.

We Americans have a totally different tradition. We respect and tolerate religion, religious diversity, but we do not, should not, make our leader's religions define who they are.