Bush's harshest critics take aim at his faith

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Bush's harshest critics take aim at his faith

March 23, 2003

BY MARY LANEY


How did we get to this? How did it happen that it is now considered not politically correct to mention the name of God when we speak? We've gone from battling over creches in city parks to legal harangues over whether or not the word God should be spoken in the Pledge of Allegiance. Next, we'll have to remove "In God We Trust" from our currency. That's not an exaggeration. Consider what the chattering classes are discussing and writing about now. National news magazines are questioning President Bush on his faith in God. One such magazine's cover story is titled ''Bush and God'' and says his ''God talk'' worries friends and foes.

This journalistic panic might be understood if we had a president who was demanding that everyone follow his particular religion. But Bush isn't doing that. All he has done has been to admit that he prays. Is that so bad? Is that evil? Is that frightening? I don't think so.

It's a big stretch to say someone who prays and talks about prayer is a person on the brink of a mental breakdown. And those who publicly decry the president for his beliefs perhaps don't understand what it is to believe there is someone, or something, greater than themselves in this universe. Or maybe, just maybe, it is an argument that springs from a political bent.

There are those who cannot accept the fact that George W. Bush is our president.

They cannot accuse him of being immoral. They cannot say he has been secreting off for assignations in the White House, or had secret land deals, or steered lucrative business to his wife while still a governor. So they accuse him of proselytizing--going so far as to criticize his speeches when he mentions ''good and evil,'' or when speaking of peace in his State of the Union address, when he said ''The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity.'' Now, I thought that was well-said. The political pundits said it ''harks back to the writings of French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville.'' And, they said, it raises a red flag on the separation of church and state.

Since they raised that issue, it's time for some clarification. Our founding fathers indeed wanted the separation of church and state. They wanted that separation so that the state could never again impose a religion on all the people as England had imposed the Church of England on its people. The signers of our Declaration of Independence wanted all people to feel free to follow the religions of their choice. That's all they wanted. Freedom of religion.

We've come so far from that. We're now at the point of punishment for following a religion--a shunning if you will--of anyone who dares state publicly that, yes, they have a spiritual life and, yes, they pray each day.

Think of the time and money spent on lawyers and courts to drag up all issues of religion or religious icons being anywhere on public grounds. There have been cases where the 10 Commandments have been ordered removed from public buildings, and a cross erected by veterans in a remote part of the Arizona desert was ordered taken down after a lawsuit was filed. Never mind that the cross was miles away from any highway and difficult to find. Never mind that it was used once a year by veterans to honor their fallen brothers. It was spotted by one man who filed a lawsuit saying it was on public property, and it was ordered taken down.

And now there is an effort to take down Bush for his comments on prayer in speeches at the remembrance of Sept. 11, after the shuttle tragedy, in his State of the Union address, and at a commencement. Political writers even go so low as to insinuate that when he gave up drinking years ago, he found Jesus.

That's low. But that's also revealing of the politics at work. It seems that those who criticize this president for his stand against Iraq are first criticizing him for his faith, then for his Texas background, and finally for his hard line against Saddam Hussein.

Bush, for his part, hasn't flinched. He has stood firm in his knowledge that Saddam is a madman with weapons of mass destruction who must be stopped. The president has tried negotiations. He has gone to Congress. He has gone to the United Nations. And, yes, he has prayed.

The pundits who write that such a belief makes them worry ought to consider another man who also had a strong belief in God. Most people call him a genius. Toward the end of his life Albert Einstein set out to prove, through scientific means, that there is a God. He said he had climbed the mountain of science and peered over the top and there he saw ... God.

How did we ever get to the point that admitting such a thing makes a man worrisome?

Mary Laney is a writer who has won eight Emmy Awards for her work on television as an anchor, reporter and commentator.