So my paper publishes this column by George Weigel that regularly gets me all riled up. I happened to be correcting the page with this column today. Here are some of my favorite bits:

Judging from the post-election reaction of his more fervent journalistic and academic supporters, the Kerry candidacy was attractive because it represented the Europeanization, which is to say “secularization,” of American public life. A Kerry presidency would keep the great unwashed hordes of evangelicals at bay; a Kerry presidency would put assertive Catholic bishops in their place, leaving the field to the more “understanding” staffers at the bishops’ conference and their episcopal allies; a Kerry presidency would regulate biotechnology in utilitarian terms (what works, we’ll do); a Kerry presidency would support the federal courts’ efforts to legislate social policy, thus nailing down “choice” as the supreme value involved in the “social issues;” a Kerry presidency would insist that the right to life of the unborn and the traditional understanding of marriage are matters of “doctrine” that “cannot be imposed on a pluralistic society;” above all, a Kerry presidency would secure a virtually unlimited abortion license, the key to sustaining the “gains” (as these folks understand them) of the sexual revolution and the women’s movement.

First of all, ‘secularization’ of American public life? This is a bad thing? America is not Catholic. America is not Christian. I don’t understand. As I’ve said before, one of the things I liked about Kerry was his determination to keep private faith out of public office. Some people don’t seem to notice that we do, in fact, HAVE a pluralistic society. I personally believe that it IS wrong for a government to impose its morals/values onto the society at large, onto people who don’t agree or believe as they do.

Religious faith, in a European-style Kerry presidency, would be thoroughly privatized: a matter of what Americans do with their solitude, to paraphrase William James. Publicly assertive Catholics, and the even more rambunctious evangelicals, would be dealt a crushing blow.

A crushing blow? Again, I don’t get it. If someone running for president was dead-set on taking away the freedom to worship as one chooses, I would understand. If someone were telling “publicly assertive Catholics” and evangelicals that they would have to shut up and *abandon* their faith instead of simply saying that we (as a country) should acknowledge that not everyone here shares the same faith, well…that would be a different story.

What Kerry’s secularist supporters can’t seem to understand is that the evangelicals, the John Paul II Catholics, and the observant Jews don’t need explaining; what needs explaining is the Harvard faculty club, Michael Moore, and most of the op-ed regulars at the New York Times–people who’ve persuaded themselves that a profound belief in the God of the Bible, expressed in a commitment to live by the Ten Commandments, is the fast track to fascism. They’re the anomaly, not the believers.

First of all, how does 48 percent of the country become defined as “the anomaly”? Second of all, does anyone actually believe this? The problem is not, as Weigel says, “a profound belief in the God of the Bible.” The problem is the possibility of the government forcing that belief (or at least the outward manifestations of that belief, ie gay marriage) onto the American public.

I’m not even gonna touch the abortion/stem cell research stuff.

My head hurts.