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By Bruce Kesler
 ENCINITAS, California—I take the view that the core tenets of all religions are essentially the same and should guide each individual. These tenets should guide governments’ very limited role in our personal lives .
The Seven Noahide Laws are basic to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and are similar to tenets found in Eastern religions:
1. Belief in G-d
2. Respect for and praise of G-d
3. Respect for human life
4. Respect for the family
5. Respect for others’ rights and property
6. Creation of a judicial system
7. Respect for all creatures
To quote my religious guide, the late Rebbe Menachem Schneerson, on the importance of these basics: “Without these laws as a bedrock of government, a society will either have despotism, where individuals’ lives are compromised and possibly abused, or anarchy, where every person pursues his or her own needs without regard for the law.”
There are varying views of the relationship of politics and religion. At one extreme, government forbids or represses or dictates the activities of one, a few, or all religions. The ideology of the state and avoidance of any challenges to its sole power are paramount. We have too many real examples of this.
At the other extreme, the dictates of a religion, or of a segment of a religion, are allowed to substitute for the usual role of government. Islamic Sharia courts and laws are one widespread example. Another is in Israel where government policy follows Orthodox dictates on such questions as who is Jewish, and who is empowered to convert someone else to Judaism. Although those following more relaxed standards are not persecuted, they are still at a disadvantage in some important respects.
At both extremes, the essential rights of individuals may be injured.
In the United States, more than in other nations, we have taken great care to walk a fine line. In the past few decades, this fine line has been blurred by the issues abortion and marriage, and now we can add health care.
When government requires that taxpayer funds pay for abortion or that private health insurance pay for abortion,
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and even more so when government requires that medical practitioners perform abortions regardless of individuals’ conscience or religious scruples, government has crossed the line.
When government requires that the legal privileges and obligations of voluntary union between two consenting adults only be between a man and a woman, government has crossed the line. Civil unions are the role of the state. Sanctification of unions as “marriage” is the role of religions.
Government has an accepted and important role to play in the protection and furtherance of public health, most particularly as regards pandemics but also in promoting better and more widespread health care. Experience in the United States, and elsewhere, demonstrates this is best accomplished when there is free choice and competition in the private sector, to the maximum degree possible. The health system requires adaptability, innovation and accommodation of individual circumstances.
In the current health care debate, the overwhelming majority of Americans reject any proposal that the government should take over control of health care. Unfortunately, primarily due to the strong arm tactics and language of its advocates, which polarize and enlarge the opposition, we may squander the opportunity to make far smaller but important incremental improvements in American health care.
President Obama has now crossed another important line. His phone calls to garner support from religious leaders of several faiths who lean toward liberal political views is not objectionable in itself. (Neither is it objectionable for religious leaders to have political views, but they should refrain from imposing them on their flock or ignoring contending justifiable moral, practical and factual considerations.) What is objectionable, far over the line, is that President Obama requested that they preach from their pulpits support for his political position.
This is an important issue. It is a completely inappropriate and precedent-breaking overt effort by President Obama to use our religious leaders as his mouthpiece/propaganda "tools." If our religious leaders do, they are "fools." If we tolerate this, we are being badly used, and the congregations’ liberal tendencies are being manipulated by President Obama. Do such congregations belong to a religion or a political party? If the latter, it indicates one of the reasons why so many depart from organized religions in the U.S.
Individuals in congregations, and those in leadership positions in congregations and our community, should speak out strongly to our religious leaders how truly inappropriate this is, as well as dangerous, to our communities of faith, to be a propaganda arm of any Washington administration, political party, or policy. President Obama's steering of sermons is far beyond anything that's ever been tried before, and should be recognized for what it is, blatant and disrespectful. At least, do our religious leaders have any self-respect or respect for us in their congregations? If not, they have forfeited respect, and should forfeit their pulpits.
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