There shall be no religious test

While many Christian conservatives are rejoicing that the first presidential discussion of both Obama and McCain was held at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church, a lot of others aren't. One gay blogger describes it this way:

* The event essentially applied a religious test to gaining the office of president, something the Constitution explicitly forbids. Both candidates were explicitly asked about their faith in Jesus, a question that a Unitarian, Jew, Muslim, or atheist would find impossible to answer appropriately.

* Obama, though he rejected a marriage protection amendment, reinforced the ideas that marriage is sacred and therefore out of bounds for gays, government should have a hand in sacred institutions, and public policy is better when attached to a statement of faith.

Submitting to this line of interrogation is a bad idea on Obama's part (perhaps even McCain's) because of the large block of voters for which their leader's faith is irrelevant. One estimate is this block of "unchurched" is now 75 million and elections have been lost on much less. Perhaps Obama is aware they find religion irrelevant and most are not antagonistic to it.

But the event even has conservatives squirming, at least the ones who can recognize the danger: What if Obama gave the "wrong" answer? What if it had been too liberal? Even among Christians how do we judge what is a proper relationship to Jesus? Shouldn't the next questioner be a rabbi or an imam? What does it prove about their ability to fulfill the duties of president? Wouldn't have time be better spent discussing health care? In short, the question should not have been asked.

The winner in this circus was not Obama or McCain. It was Warren. He was able to reinforce the idea that to get elected in America one must toe the fundamentalist line -- that there is a religious test for the office of president.