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Opinion

Keep'em separated

By Scott T. Hards


政教分離の重要性

国がある宗教を一般民衆に押し付けることは、個人の自由な思考を破壊することにほかならず、 そうしたことをする国が栄えた例もないのである。

It is Aug. 15 as I write this, and once again many Japanese politicians visited Yasukuni Shrine to pray for the souls of Japan's war dead. Prime minister Junichiro Koizumi was again not there this year (though he'd love to be), primarily to avoid giving China another issue to whine about.

My advice to Koizumi: Ignore the Chinese. The Second World War ended almost 60 years ago and Japan has since changed dramatically. China coddles North Korea, imprisons and tortures people for their thoughts, and gives death sentences for minor crimes. They're hardly in a position to take the moral high ground.

Criticism of Yasukuni visits comes from within Japan, too. The opposition parties would have you believe that the prime minister 's visit is unconstitutional. Their argument is that the prime minister is "the state," as mentioned in Article 20 of Japan's constitution: " The state and its organs shall refrain from religious education or any other religious activity." This ignores, however, the important first sentence of the same article: "Freedom of religion is guaranteed to all."

The U.S. constitution has a similar provision. The first amendment begins, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Koizumi's actions have nothing to do with imposing his own religious views upon anyone else. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the president of the United States.

Among other things, George W. Bush has called "ridiculous" a court decision that the words "under God" in the U.S. pledge of allegiance are unconstitutional. It doesn't take a legal scholar to understand that telling a citizen to recite the words "under God" even if they are Buddhist or atheist is a clear violation of the intentions of the writers of the constitution and its amendments. Yet the U.S. president cannot see this.

Recently, he has made an even more stunning declaration: On the issue of same-sex marriages, legalized in Canada: "I believe marriage is between a man and a woman and I believe we ought to codify that one way or the other, and we have lawyers looking at the best way to do that." In other words, he wants to turn his personal morals into laws affecting the entire nation.

I'm not gay and have nothing to gain personally by allowing gay marriages. But I have nothing to lose either. Why would a man want to prohibit something that doesn't infringe on the rights of others? No country or leader should ever be allowed to impose their religion or morals on their citizens.

It is desperately important that countries around the world keep church and state separated. For starters, it's no coincidence that there are no highly developed nations in which religion is allowed to play a role in government. But more importantly, allowing the centralized imposition of religion is to allow the imposition of a way of thinking - the destruction of free thought.

One need not search very far in human history to find examples of the horrors that are unleashed when central authority is free to impose its views on its populace: to name a few, the Taliban, North Korea, the Nazi Party, and yes, the very cause of all those politicians' trips to Yasukuni Shrine.



Shukan ST: Aug. 29, 2003

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