One of the most untouchable issues in American politics is the damaging proposition, deliberately fostered by government leaders, that religious devotion and patriotism are inseparable. These past few weeks we have seen an awful lot of that sort of damage occurring. A large part of the problem is the utter lack of fairness in reporting from the secular perspectives in American society.

This unholy alliance of religious devotion and patriotism is completely tied up in the current push to theocratize the US government in ways our Constitution forbids. But when we have no secular defenders of the Constitution being allowed to speak through the mass media and thereby reach a mass audience, who do we expect to defend us, our Constitution, and our way of life from these religious/political demagogues? The pope? Not likely.