Well, maybe that's a bit exaggerated, but it's still kinda fun to watch the nutters over at the Ayn Rand Institure throw well-aimed spit-balls at the religious right. And the conclusion, at least, is unimpeachable:
If "people of faith" choose to act irrationally in their private lives, they are free to do so. But if there is one institution that must be held rationally accountable for every single action it takes, it is the agency that can lawfully use guns, prisons, and lethal injections against legally disarmed citizens.
Separating church from state does not guarantee victory for the rational protection of individual rights--secular irrationality is possible, indeed commonplace--but such separation is indispensable nonetheless. This is why issues like abortion, gay rights, and "Intelligent Design" creationism merit so much attention. Once judges begin accepting religious feelings as valid decisional factors, the secular principle cannot survive, and the disintegration of society into sectarian strife must soon follow.
"People of faith" began this war, and so people of reason must now end it--by zealously defending the secular state, and vowing never to allow faith and force to be united under the American flag.
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