Just which 'season' is it exactly?
National Affairs
Claire Hoy
"I'd rather face the anger of the people than the anger of God," Mike Huckabee, Arkansas Governor.

Huckabee, a former Baptist preacher, is not the kind of Christian politician who apologizes for his faith. Quite the opposite. The U.S. Republican presidential hopeful, who has recently emerged as a serious contender, once offered the above mentioned quote to explain his controversial decision to reduce the death sentence of a convicted murderer to life in prison.

While Huckabee's open expressions of faith - and the impact it has on his public policy positions - are more obvious than some of his opponents, the notion of politics and religion is far more entrenched in American politics than in our own.

There's a certain irony here in that the U.S. constitution includes the notion of the separation of church and state, something that does not exist in Canadian law or tradition. It's also a notion which is routinely misunderstood. It was meant to protect religion from the state, not expunge it, as some people would like to do.

An August, 2007 Pew Forum poll found that 69 per cent of Americans polled say that it is important for president to have strong religious beliefs. One assumes similar poll in Canada would show the opposite, even though polls consistently show the vast majority of Canadians claim to believe in the traditional Christian God, even though fewer and fewer attend weekly Church service.

Having just returned from a three-week road trip through several southern U.S. states, the importance of religion in the day-to-day lives of the people is obvious. From the number of Churches to the numerous billboards touting various religions and/or religious-based messages, to the prominence of religious news in the local newspapers and broadcasts, Christianity is a major force in the American psyche.

In Canada, however, the anti-religious forces appear to be winning.

Witness, for example, the seemingly endless examples of officialdom attempting to edit our any mention of "Christmas" during this Christmas season. Earlier this month, for example, there were the nitwits who run an Ottawa school who decreed that the word "Christmas" had to be excised from the song "Silver Bells," on the spurious grounds that it might "offend" those who are not Christian. And store clerks are ordered to say "Season's Greetings" instead of "Merry Christmas." Just which "season" is it exactly?

Nobody dares suggests similar editing when it comes to the major celebrations of the other faiths in this country. Nor should they. So why is it that only Christians and Christianity seem to be open targets? Worse, with few exceptions, it is not people from our minority religions who are clamoring to edit out Christian references, it is misguided, overtly small "l" liberal "Christians" who are leading the parade away from any public expressions of faith.

While Americans want their political leaders to subscribe to a strong faith-based code, Canadians openly complain when politicians dare express a religious-based view to explain their actions.

Why? Why should politicians be expected to leave their religious beliefs outside the front door of Parliament or the provincial legislatures while all their other core beliefs are deemed to be appropriate?

Do we ask union leaders, for example, to set aside their labor-based beliefs when they get elected? Do we ask bankers to forget the economic beliefs which obviously guide them in their public policy positions? Of course not.

Yet, as Stockwell Day discovered when he lead the Alliance Party in a federal election, outward expressions of religion are met with outright hostility from other politicians and, alas, the vast bulk of the mainstream media. People say, a politician is entitled to believe whatever he wants, "but he shouldn't be shoving his religion down our throats."

It's okay, however, for the aforementioned union leader to get elected and rewrite labor-management laws based on his union experience and beliefs. It's okay for our elected bank manager to rely on his financial experience to fashion the next budget. In both these examples and countless more -politicians who are acting on a certain set of beliefs are "shoving" those beliefs down our throats, particularly the throats of voters who disagree with them, but they're entitled to do that because they've been elected.

By the same token, if Huckabee, an ardent pro-life advocate, does get elected as president of the U.S., we can certainly expect legislation to limit the number of abortions, a view he holds based on his religious convictions.

That would make a lot of people unhappy, but most Americans won't be arguing that he's not entitled to display the courage of his convictions. Not in Canada, however. Here, the idea of faith-based ideology has been literally herded back into the closet. Pity.