A recent article in the Boston Globe on Democratic Party Presidential candidate Senator John Kerry stated: "Kerry was raised a Catholic, served as an altar boy, and once considered becoming a priest. Nevertheless, he said yesterday, ’Whatever my personal beliefs are, they have no place here,’ and repeatedly stressed his view that the constitutional separation of church and state forbids lawmakers from regulating abortion based on their religious beliefs.”
My response to Kerry: If you believe something is murder you should oppose it. It is entirely irrelevant whether your opinion stems from your religious beliefs, your moral beliefs, your philosophical beliefs, or whatever you want to call it. Your beliefs are what you think. How can the source of your beliefs make a difference? How can someone seriously say that one has no right to support a particular position in a democratic system because their beliefs stem from one reason or another? That is anti-democratic, anti-free speech, unconstitutional, and a trampling on our civil liberties.
What if someone in a country whose government was committing genocide stated "constitutional separation of church and state forbids lawmakers from regulating genocide based on their religious beliefs."?