jaipur:
Agreed. Separation of church & state is quite explicit. The tricky thing is if you're a voter that wants to cast a vote for a candidate that reflects your values, you want to know that.
The problem is regardless of whether it's religious values or whatever, people too often apply selective reasoning when selecting a candidate. For example, I have an interest in saving our fish stocks off the NE coast of america. Kerry was very much involved in that fight. Should I vote for him simply based on that when in fact his platform may have no other means of improving my quality of life? And I'm not saying whether he does or doesn't offer anything else - I'm just offering a hypothetical situaton.