Warning, Crazy Arsed Political Post Ahead

So I read this post over at the Corpuscle the other day, and it got me thinking about separation of church and state. I've always thought it was a good idea, because we want to keep the nutcase Jesus freaks out of government, but after I read that article I started wondering, just what does constitute a religion in this day and age anyway? Are the Green party religious, (their morality often seems derived from a spiritual source)? The National Front? United Future are clearly Christian, but less so than the Destiny Church. There's also the Natural Law Party, very religious but with more in common with the Greens than the Christian Heritage party. Clearly there's a spectrum, but where do we draw the line? George Bush's 'faith based' programs have drawn ire for violating the seperation of church and state, and with fair reason, but if any of the above parties tried to do the same thing (with their own peculiar kinds of faith) for which ones would it be acceptable?

On top of that, the reason I don't like the idea of religion in government has more to do with my dislike of religion than with any objective incompatibility between government and religious ideas (as opposed to say, liberal ideas). I suspect the reason that Thomas Jefferson and his mates enshrined the idea in law was simply because of the practical consideration that religious involvement with government had a long history of corruption and intolerance back in Europe, and they thought it would be a good idea to start their new society without any of that bullshit.

Now this might seem like a trivial concern, and well, it probably is, but it just occurred to me that citing 'separation of church and state' while arguing with a religiously inclined nutbag isn't really a valid argument. Why should their belief in a higher power be treated differently than my beliefs, which are, in the end, derived from a source not much better defined (some scholars might call this source 'my arse'). When it comes down to it, it's still just 'my values vs. yours', and there's no objective reason they should take that argument seriously on it's own with no other justification (other than, of course, that I'm right and they're wrong).