It’s your right to come together
It’s your right to join and pray
It’s your right to go to Houston
To the Astrodome today

It’s your first amendment freedom;
Just remember, when you do,
That the same applies to others
When they’re criticizing you.

It’s my right to call you foolish
It’s my right to say you’re wrong
It’s my right to disagree with you
In poetry or song

You have every right to worship
You have every right to speak
But you do not have immunity
From secular critique

It’s your right to call me sinful
And to say I’m bound for hell
Just as long as every other voice
Can have their say as well

In the NYTimes, Op-Ed contributor Paul Horwitz writes “How to respond to Rick Perry and ‘The Response’“. It’s a nice piece, arguing that attempts to keep religion out of the public sphere are misguided. Not because religion has any sort of special privilege in guiding public officials, but because attempts to keep religion “private” come at too great a cost:

by trying to banish religion from the public sphere, Mr. Perry’s critics end up cutting themselves out of the debate. When religion is viewed as a fundamentally private matter, the natural corollary is to think that it is inappropriate to criticize someone’s faith.

We have also seen that those who do criticize faith matters are seen as militant, boorish, dicks.

This double standard needs to end. If religion can’t be forbidden in our public debates, even for elected officials, neither should it be immune from public criticism. And in the case of Mr. Perry and “The Response,” there are good reasons to be critical.

Horwitz focuses on The Response, but the message applies much more broadly.

I personally like it when public officials flaunt their religion in public. But then, satirical writing requires a diet rich in public stupidity.