Barack Obama, keynote address, Call to Renewal’s Building a Covenant for a New America conference, 6/28/06 in Washington, D.C. (bold emphasis is mine):
“Given the increasing diversity of America’s population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation ; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.
“And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson’s, or Al Sharpton’s? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount—a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let’s read our bibles. Folks haven’t been reading their bibles.
“This brings me to my second point. Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. What do I mean by this? It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, to take one example, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I can’t simply point to the teachings of my church, or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.
“This is gonna be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do, but in a pluralistic society, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves compromise—the art of what’s possible. And at some fundamental level, religion doesn’t allow for compromise. It’s the art of the im possible. If God spoke then followers are expected to live up to God’s edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one’s life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policymaking on such commitments would be a dangerous thing.”
“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.”
—Voltaire