Religion is a very important motivating factor for a large portion of our society. If the pious want to join with the technorati against this for religious reasons, I would welcome them. Religion may not be as influential today as it was in the past, but God-fearing Americans are still a very large and powerful constituency.
Besides, if I'm reading your comment correctly, you're in favor of separation of church and state in public schools -- which is exactly the position taken by the religious protagonist of the article.
>You're in favor of separation of church and state in public schools -- which is exactly the position taken by the religious protagonist of the article.
(Genuinely asking) Is it? I want to be excepted from state policies based on my religion is NOT a well defined right. Again, there are many state/federal laws that contradict many religious texts and supersede them.
> I want to be excepted from state policies based on my religion
It is sort of a gray area. On the one hand, you don't want people to start worshiping the gods of Norevenu and insisting that paying taxes goes against the beliefs of their pantheon so they don't have to do it and the Constitution says they're okay because that's part of their religion.
On the other hand, you don't want politicians to be able to write laws that clearly harass or deny religious freedom to believers.
Where the case in the article falls on that spectrum is open to debate. Some of my personal heuristics for policymaking are:
1. If you do things the way they've always been done before, the risks are more of a known quantity. We should apply a penalty to the score we assign to any policy that involves doing new things, to represent the risks we don't understand.
2. Government often manages to screw things up, so smaller government is usually better. That way if things do get screwed up, at least there's a good chance it'll be on a small scale and/or for a short time. We should apply a penalty to the score we assign to any policy that involves a larger or more intrusive government, to represent the risk of greater inefficiency, corruption, scope creep, and unintended consequences.
3. You should apply a penalty to anything that costs money and a bonus to anything that generates or saves money, if balancing the budget is a concern. Right now, this applies everywhere: At the federal level we're running many deficits, and most state/city/local governments are being squeezed by the recession, declining grants from higher levels, and increasing costs.
All of these heuristics point in the same direction on this one.
Besides, if I'm reading your comment correctly, you're in favor of separation of church and state in public schools -- which is exactly the position taken by the religious protagonist of the article.