I completely love the idea "Government should have no influence on religious beliefs."
While I abhor the idea "Religious beliefs should have no influence on government."
**gilly - I think lisashea stated it well. To elaborate - I think that government should not force religion on the people. I think that eliminates most of the objections that were posed. What bothers me is that people think I (and others) should build an artificial wall between my religious beliefs and my politics. If I completely disassociated myself from an organized religion, my thoughts on political matters would not change. Would that suddenly make it okay? We all try to affect those laws we think are good and knock down those laws we think are not good - you shouldn't have to remove yourself from that process just because your ideas of good and not good are founded in a spirituality that has an organized label.
***bill - I assume you weren't looking for any feedback on your comment since you made up your own dialog. Just so long as you don't think that would have been my response to your comment...