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face="VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF"><B>We want leaders, not religious
gurus</B></FONT><BR><FONT size=-1
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face="VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF">ELISE PATKOTAK<BR><IMG
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20:51:35)</I>
<P>Let's see if I have this straight. President Obama offers his Thanksgiving
address and in it neglects to thank God. This leads to a cacophony of screeches
from right-wing conservative pundits who are apparently pretty sure that this
omission means that Obama plans to lead us down a godless path to defeat,
destruction and total world domination by (pick one) Muslims or communists. Wow.
</P>
<P>My first thought was to invite these pundits to move to Iran or some other
theocracy where God is always mentioned as the only justification needed for any
and all decrees, from which movies can play in theaters to how many times you
can whip a woman who showed her face in public. </P>
<P>You'll have to forgive me if, as a woman, I say that I'd prefer not to live
in a theocracy. They always seem to be run by men who claim God as their
authority for keeping women barely one level above slavery. </P>
<P>I'm not picking on Muslim nations with that statement. Christianity has a
long and pathetic history of how women were treated in Europe during the height
of religious rule. At the highest level, they were bought and sold as nothing
more than chattel, cementing relationships desired by the men who ruled them. At
the lowest level, their husbands had a right to beat them and kill them if need
be. And the Church, while it might have made an occasional quiet demure on the
matter, pretty much supported the status quo.</P>
<P>So as a woman, I have to say that if Barack Obama wants to mention God in his
Thanksgiving address, he has every right to do so. But if he doesn't, I don't
really find myself getting all out of sorts and huffy. God, as interpreted by
way too many powerful religious men in countries where religion rules, is often
an oppressor of women. I'd just as soon our president didn't bring that into our
country.</P>
<P>If these right-wing pundits really believe that having religion and publicly
proclaiming it as central to their lives is the litmus test that politicians
must pass to garner conservative support, then I really do wish they would move
to some country that is already a theocracy and leave America alone. Because
that should not be now, and never was in the past, the criterion we used to
elect the people who would lead us.</P>
<P>While past presidents may have mentioned God in their public discourse, they
did not run on a platform of being more Christian than the next guy. That would
have scared Americans who still remembered the religious prosecutions they and
their ancestors had fled in order to live in a country where religion was a
personal, not public matter, and no one could tell them they had to think or
worship one way or another -- or at all if they did not choose to do so.</P>
<P>I have had the privilege of knowing many good people in my life. Some went to
church daily. Some went weekly. And some never went inside a church except for
family funerals and weddings. Religion was not what made them good people.
Religion was part of who some were, but their belief in the basic dignity of all
people and in the virtues of living a decent and honorable life, being faithful
to their spouse and loving to their children -- none of that was solely
predicated on whether they showed up for services on Sunday. It was simply what
they believed to be right.</P>
<P>People who believe in God and receive comfort from their spirituality should
be free to both worship as they please and express their beliefs as they choose.
But no American politician should be held to some litmus test involving God.
That stuff belongs in Iran or Saudi Arabia. Not America.</P>
<P>Anyone can put the words "thank God" into a speech without those words
holding any meaning. Do these conservative pundits really want to trivialize
their God and religion to the point where it becomes nothing more than another
thing to check off in public -- lapel flag pin, check. Thank God and mom in
speech, check. </P>
<P>We elect politicians to be our civil leaders, not our religious gurus. Forget
that and we lose our democracy and become a theocracy.</P>
<P></P>
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<P><FONT size=-1 face="VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF">Elise Patkotak is
an Alaska writer and author of "Parallel Logic," a memoir of her 28 years in
Barrow. Website, <A
title="http://www.elisepatkotak.com/
CTRL + Click to follow link"
href="http://www.elisepatkotak.com/">www.elisepatkotak.com</A>.
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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Verdana>________________________</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Verdana>Wayne A. Fox<BR><A
href="mailto:wayne.a.fox@gmail.com">wayne.a.fox@gmail.com</A><BR></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>