A red flag on John Edwards

You know, I've often thought a lot lately about the blogosphere's ongoing obsession with which corporate stooge is going to replace our current corporate stooge in 2008. By and large, I've tuned most of it out. I don' t want to really get into it until primary season is just around the corner, and, as usual the candidates so far that interest me are 'none of the above'.

Nevertheless, I read something today in Huff Post about John Edwards that may be of interest to the FBC readers who put the separation of church and state at the top of their lists. The article is mostly benign, focusing on how John Edwards believed Jesus would be appalled at the way this country was being run. Putting aside the question of whether or not Jesus actually existed, I'm inclined to agree with him. But then he said something that made my alarm bells go off:

Edwards also said he was against teacher-led prayers in public schools, but he added that "allowing time for children to pray for themselves, to themselves, I think is not only OK, I think it's a good thing."

No, it's not. My objections to this (and school prayer in general) stem not just from the fact that we are a secular nation, but the idea that I feel many proponents of school prayer want it as a way to validate their belief system in the public sphere, and in a subtle way, I view it as a form of evangelizing. It comes down to this: there is no reason whatsoever a prayer needs to be said in a public school. Kids are there to learn, not to pray. If a daily prayer is so important, they can say it before they come to school, and they can again when they go home. Hell, I don't care if the need to pray overwhelms them like a diarrhea attack and they need to run to the toilet stall to pray. That's fine, because it remains a personal, private matter. Plus, if you really want to get into it, praying in school is the last thing Jesus would have wanted:

"And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men....when thou prayest, enter into thy closet and when thou has shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret...." - Matthew 6:5-6

Yeah, I'm one of those atheists that have actually read the Bible. This is one of the many, many passages the fundies conveniently like to ignore so they can continue to behave badly. Like I said, just as Jesus was turned off by the public professions of faith by the Pharisees and Sadducees, I can't help but think he would have thought the same of the subtle evangelizing that school prayer is a manifestation of.

So back to Edwards. He is obviously a man of faith, and he seems to be more of the mindset of using his faith to help, not harm, unlike Falwell, Dobson and Co. Knowing full well that one cannot get elected in this country without a bit of God-ass-kissing, I'm aware of how limited our choices are. But this kind of talk from Edwards gives all of us supportive of church-state separation pause for concern about how this mindset might affect other areas of policy under a potential Edwards administration.