The arguments pro & con are familiar to everyone reading this blog, I suppose. FWIW, Drum & Yglesias are probably right, and if self-proclaimed Christians want to debase the 10 Commandments to the level of "one nation, under God," then who am I to suggest that mixing religion & government is detrimental to both?

It does not.

As I said elsewhere:

This is not a chuch and state argument. I submit this entire discussion is mis- cast.

If we understand (as I have argued for years) that the purpose of government is to codify and enforce the values of the culture that gave it life, and also to hopefully extend the influence of that culture within the world... then the influence of religious values in our government will be a product of the degree to which religion is a part of the culture itself. This is not mandating religion; it is simply reacting to,a nd holding respect for the culture, as government should; this is the proper relationship.

This is not, therefore, a matter of church and state (And the mythical separation thereof) as much as it is a discussion about the culture, and the influence of religion in it, which is another matter altogether.

Consider the words of John McCandlish Phillips, a former reporter at the NYT:

--

"The fact is that our founders did not give us a nation frightened by the apparition of the Deity lurking about in our most central places. On Sept. 25, 1789, the text of what was later adopted as the First Amendment was passed by both houses of Congress, and subsequently sent to the states for ratification. On that same day , the gentlemen in the House who had acted to give us that invaluable text took another action: They passed a resolution asking President George Washington to declare a national day of thanksgiving to no less a perceived eminence than almighty God.

That's president , that's national, that's official and, alas, my doubting hearties, it's God... all wrapped up in a federal action by those who knew what they meant by the non-establishment clause and saw their request as standing at not the slightest variance from it."

--

While other religions (Or for that matter, atheists, which I will include as a faith unto itself) are accepted by both law and the tradition of western culture, they are never more than a minority influence in our culture. And that seems to be to be the most troubling to Hitches of the world and to the Randians as well.

And is, I suppose the basis for your comment.

Of course this has no bearing on those in the pits of the DU blinking under similar conditions. They've proven themselves time and again to be totally devoid of active nerous systems.