Are you saying it’s fine for elected religious laymen to force religion into our government and onto its people because they’re not church officials?

I have no problem with people having religious beliefs...in private. But, as far as I'm concerned, as soon as those religious beliefs start dictating your policy priorities...you have lost your ability to make objective decisions on behalf of the rest of us. That goes equally for "laymen" as well as "professionals".

This case is a perfect example. Anyone openly saying that they're just going to "follow their faith", even if it leads us all to total destruction, needs to be removed from office. Yesterday. I wouldn't even trust that person to drive a city bus, let alone guide policy for the entire population.

FUCKING LIES!

Separation of church and state is different from separation of state and religious laymen.

Fucking lies!. And it’s a bald faced lie that results in “In God We Trust” on our money.

There is either a separation or there is not. There is no in between. It is binary and that’s the end of it. Anyone who attempts to negotiate an in-between is a FUCKING LIAR

E PLURIBUS UNUM

And if you have a problem with that, then you have a problem with democracy

I see what you're saying. You can't exclude everyone from every religion from running for office.

Which makes a lot of sense when you remember a lot of the North American population hailed from families who had a specific beef with a specific church and state; the role of bishops was one of these many axis of opposition during the conflict in Britain and Ireland.

The English Civil War and its aftermath is barely taught on either side of the Atlantic, yet it's so important to understanding both countries' history. The per capita casualty rate was worse than WW1, no wonder people felt rather strongly about religion and in some cases still do

The down votes on this are insane to me. He just gave the original definition of the separation of church and state.

Every elected representative should only be bound by existing laws and their own conscience. That means that if someone chooses to listen to sky daddy or the flying spaghetti monster while in elected office, that's up to them. It sucks, but you can't have a democracy in which you tell people what the basis for their decisions must be. If the people elect an Astrologer to office that person should be free to base their decisions on the movement of Jupiter through Sagittarius or whatever.

Democracy is designed to empower the statistical average will of the people. Not produce "best" (by whatever measure) outcomes for the country. Just what people want.