Obama on Religious Liberty

by Edd Doerr

President Obama is to be commended for his fine, inclusive Jan 16 proclamation on religious liberty. But, like the December PBS documentary on the same subject, it did not mention the current threats to religious liberty in America posed by the Religious Right and their political allies and enablers in Congress, state legislatures and the media. Among the most serious: the accelerating war on women's rights of conscience and health on reproductive matters; the ramping up of the drive to divert public funds to religious and other private schools through vouchers, tax credits and other schemes; the unceasing campaign by fundamentalists to infiltrate public schools; the pseudo-reformer drive to privatize public education and downgrade the teaching profession.

That is why we need such organizations as Americans for Religious Liberty (founded by Humanists), the ACLU, NARAL, Planned Parenthood, Catholics for Choice, the Religious Coalition for reproductive Choice, the teacher unions,  and others  fighting the good fight for church-state separation. All of these merit the continued financial support of concerned individuals.  And, I might add, the efforts of more  people to engage in influencing pumlic opinion through letters to editors.