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Keeping with our recent religion theme, does this type of statement from a viable presidential candidate bother religious folks at all? I know how I feel about this and I know how the Christian Right feels about this, but how about you reasonable religious people in the middle? There has always been debate about church/state separation, but come on...

Wow... that's a little way out there...

Actually, I was waiting for this from Huck... it was only a matter of time.

It will be interesting reading the response here.

I think his base will eat this up because most of them think this country was founded on Christian principles. You know, turning the other check, giving to the poor, no amassing wealth, etc.

Mark the time! Huckabees candidacy is officially OVER! When you start talking about changing or amending the constitution you are DONE

I wouldn't be too sure. I thought he was done when it came out that he thought AIDS was a plague and carriers of the plague should be isolated from the rest of society. His popularity only went up after his statements about the AIDS plague made it out in the public.

I wouldn't bet on that.

I wouldn't have bet on that either, and I hope SamyO is right, that his candidacy is officially over........but, despite the fact there was a time when such statements would have been the kiss of death for a presidential candidate, I think Huckabee is still going to find enough support in this country to at least stay in the news. If he got elected and really engaged the nation in a controversy about the wording of that part of the constitution, I wonder how many other, more or less important things would escape the notice of the people and the press just because of the attention this would get.........................................?

If this is a recent and legit quote, and not out of context, the guy scares me.

Listen/watch for yourself, snoop. It was earlier this week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onHkywYc_1M

I don't think Huckabee has much of a chance anyway, but the words "amend the Constitution" bother me more than the words (" so it's in God's standards") do.

every time i TRY to like huckabe.....i like his warm affability, his radical and weirdly feasible tax plans, his refusal to stoop to dirt politics.....he does something like this.
what the far right candidates don't seem to get is that a president has to be EVERYONE's president. you can appeal to your base and be true to your principles without turning america into something it was never meant to be......a nation frenzied over a single religion.
why does he feel it so necessary to do this? everyone running for president is a christian. every president we've ever had has been christian.
they're, like...so not threatened.
:/
khairete
suz

Ditto. I like Huck, I'd REALLY like him as my next-door neighbor or poker buddy, but I'm getting further and further away from him and his position when it comes to politics and the running of my country.

As a "spiritual" but not "religious" person, I DO NOT WANT a "religious" person in charge of my country. I want a BUSINESSMAN in charge. We can't run this country on religion, or else it will be a Church, not a Country. If this country was run LIKE a business, IMHO, I think we'd be in a much better position, financially. I'm a big proponent of FISCAL RESPONSBILITY and I ain't seeing a bunch of that with King George in office.

Is it really different than having an Islamic state? I think we have all seen how bad that "can be/ is", we certainly do not need it here.

there is a reason "a separation of church and state" is called for.

the "state" part we all have in common because we all live here. the "church" portion... the "god" portion, if you will, shouldn't have bearing to change the constitution... it wouldnt be bringing it to "gods standards"... it would be bringing it to what THIS guy perceives to be his interpretation of the standards of the god he believes in. ridiculous.

I think the founding fathers would be very concerned about the blurring of the line today. The omission of god from the Constitution was not a mere oversight. In fact, many of the founders (Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, James Madison, and others) were deists who believed in a god, but not in the traditional judeo-christian mold. In fact, President John Adams (himself a Unitarian) signed the Treaty of Tripoli, which said, ""As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen [Muslim]; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries." In these days of Christian-Muslim tenstion, we could use a little more of that kind of reassurance to other cultures, instead of all the "kill the Muslim extremists" rhetoric that seems to play so well here. Fundamentalists on BOTH sides only fuel the fire. Regarding the church/state separation, this country has seen more enlightened times.

One of the books on my "to read" pile is Freethinkers - A History of American Secularism by Susan Jacoby. I'll update this post after I finish the book.

Please do, I'd be interested in what you thought of it. I consider myself a deist. Good luck trying to convince people that America was not founded on Christian principles or that the founding fathers weren't a bunch of religious nuts. I gave that quest up 30 years ago. That idea has been etched into peoples minds for too long.

Propaganda. That's what our history is based on. It's the only thing that works when trying to convince the masses of anything.

I wonder how people would see things if the Vikings had founded our country instead............................Odin's standards instead of God's. We'd still have the prob of having a human spin on the whole thing.

With one eye maybe?