By Keinan Greene

In his recent editorial rant over the “moral values” vote determining the presidential election (“The Midwest is now safe,” Nov. 10), Justin Rebello makes the starkly secularist decree that religion “should serve as no basis of opinion” in deciding how to vote. Religious views, he writes, “have no place in American politics.”

Considering the historical fact that public religious discourse has informed and shaped American politics from its very beginnings, Rebello’s views are, to say the least, extreme.

Unfortunately, Rebello fails to provide any substantial reasons supporting his illiberal and prejudiced notion that religiously-based opinions ought to be banned from the public square.

There is a strong case to be made that the U.S. Constitution itself contradicts Rebello’s view. Presumably, Rebello bases his opinion on the First Amendment clause prohibiting the establishment of religion by Congress. However, a complete reading of the First Amendment yields that the “no establishment” clause is bound by the subsequent “free exercise” clause, which expressly forbids Congress from “prohibiting the free exercise” of a citizen’s religious beliefs.

Clearly, the First Amendment was written with the intention of protecting religious practice, not prohibiting it. James Madison, who introduced the First Amendment to Congress, wrote on the topic that the state should neither give privileges on account of religion, nor penalize anyone on its account. Rebello’s notion that religious people aren’t allowed to have their views inform public debate and policy violates this “no penalties” principle by effectively preventing citizens from discharging their religious duties.

In Madison’s construal of the First Amendment, the “no establishment” clause is to be implemented in service to the central goal of protecting the right of free exercise. In other words, the reason Congress is barred from imposing religion in the first place is to protect the right of people to exercise their beliefs, free of state coercion to the contrary. “Free exercise” is the goal, and “no establishment” is the means. Whether in the quiet privacy of their own homes, or out in the public forum of American politics, citizens should be free to express and exercise religiously-based viewpoints so long as they don’t infringe on the right of others to do the same.

So, if on the off chance Justin Rebello were placed in a position to be passing laws over the American populace, he would, thankfully, be prevented by the First Amendment from coercing his personal creed of sacred secularism on us all. And, contra Rebello, citizens have an unquestionable right to vote for their government representatives based on any opinion they deem fit, religious or non. Just because an opinion may not agree with yours doesn’t mean it should be banned from the public square. In other words, this is a democracy. Get over it.

– Keinan Greene is a freshman civil engineering major.