Separate Church and State!

It's been a while since I felt like blogging, Flipper's email asking me to write something for the site a couple days ago was on my mind but honestly, I'm just too fed up with it all. But then, today reading the Daily Herald's (nice new site by the way DH!) story about Frans and George saying they don't think SXM should have separation of Church and State I no longer had any choice.

I've covered religion and SXM's religious nuts a few times over the years, one my first blogs here was titled Gay Gay Gay Gay Gay, I was sick and tired of reading religious clap trap and homophobic hate speech in our papers, and about 3 weeks later the two CBS gay guys got whacked over the head with a tire iron in Maho. Links to some of my other blogs can be found on one I wrote last year titled 'State and Church Separation?'

Before I get stuck in to this lovely meaty morsel laid before me, let me just state as I have done in the past that it is not my intention to offend those with religious beliefs. However, I reserve the right to have and hold to my own non religious beliefs and that means it's probably impossible not to offend those with them when speaking my mind. You have been warned.

[More....]

Now, what's all this I hear about government building a church with money taken out of the tourism funds? Not only that, but Frans and George apparently proclaimed that they believe there should be no separation between Church and State in the New Country St. Maarten.

First, about the Church and taxpayer money. There is something that is just so fundamentally wrong about this that it is difficult to narrow it down or express it's wrongness. As the Daily Herald Editorial rightly calls it, "an unprecedented direct involvement of government not just in religion as a whole, but with one specific church group."

Government has absolutely NO business funding individual religious groups at all, nor to use tax payer funds to build a church. As a tax payer I'd have to ask "How dare they! 500,000nafs from the Tourism budget??!?"

Notice too that the DH reports that it was apparently Sarah that obtained the land for the church, so that's a few families on the housing list to wait a little longer I guess. How many parishioners, ie voters, does this church have I wonder?

Secondly, both Frans and George have shown themselves to be either ignorant and naive about what Separation is and why it exists, or that they have some pretty screwed up thinking going on inside their heads. Either way, not the sort I myself would want running a country and making it's laws. Nor do I want the homophobic bigots in SMUMF and the churches to have influence on making those laws either, thank you very much. It's a dangerous path towards theocracy. It's not a matter of whether Christians are a majority, the island has enough diversity to be considered secular. I think most people out there would choose the latter if the choice was explained to them.

Government has no business being so close to religion and religion has no business meddling in government.

Anyway, I've run out of time and there was so much more I wanted to say about this too. Nevermind, I'm sure if PE still has readers this blog may get some reactions. Please share your thoughts about it all.

Dr. Voodoo