Policy and the Separation of Church and State

I read both “What’s Next” articles (“What’s Next? The Democrats” and “What’s Next? The Republicans,” April issue), and they captured the divide between Democrats and Republicans. The Democrats article was long on specifics, policy, and issues. The Republicans article, while addressing many of the same issues, was short on specifics and policy and, as expected, long on values, especially religion. While the author, Ryan T. Anderson ’04, is careful to nuance this — writing, “Where people assemble in a variety of houses of worship to give thanks to the Creator so central to the Declaration” — for the vast majority of Republicans religion equates to Christianity. So much for the separation of church and state if Republicans must ask, as Anderson writes, how effectively policies “defend core American values like life, marriage, work, and religion.”