Monday 3 December 2007

Politcs and religion

On another blog ( here & here) a commentator writes:
I'm rather uncomfortable with the idea that religion influences politics full stop. From my point of view when the RU486 debate was on it seemed that Tony Abbott was not able to see any reasonable argument but his own.
So I replied:
Isn't it a bit naive to think that religion might not 'influence' politics?
As though politics exists in some sort of vacuum. By definition (I would have thought) that those things which engage the populace at large are going to influence politics...clearly religion does engage a large sector of the population.
I am not suggesting that the religious viewpoint should be given any more of a standing than any other viewpoint, and should be open to the usual democratic scrutinies but its nonsense to say that any legitimate group in our society should be barred from exercising its democratic rights!
Quite frankly if the gun lobby can be allowed to speak its mind, I don't see why organisations that have decidedly more benevolent goals shouldn't. If BHP or Santos or Gunn's can be allowed to have their say then why shouldn't a church, or a temple or a synagogue.
They don't have to prevail, but they do have the right

1 comment:

Arthur_Vandelay said...

Steve: I've responded on mine.