When paganism is outlawed, only outlaws will be pagans. When you describe a theocracy as "religiously justified tyranny", you make it sound worse than it is. If our government accepts cultural deviance, it is signaling a green light for our children to stray off the path. I agree it can sound scary, but you have to look at the reality of the matter and the consequences of certain freedoms. Also, just because something has been a tradition in our government doesn't mean it should be kept. I admire your spirit though. In a perfect world we wouldn't need spiritual laws, people would willingly act moral.
And what is the plan of implimenting this "get back to our Christian roots"? Just curious on how it should be done.
This is a false dichotomy, in other words, it suggests that the only way to solve a problem is through the proposed solution. There are other ways. Moreover, I would argue that your solution would ultimately fail. How do you enforce it? With powerful government ministries who can reach out and crush non-Christian activities? Some of our legal changes are simply reflective of the fact that the government couldn't and shouldn't be in the business of moral enforcement. We used to ban books in the USA. We don't anymore. Is that bad? I don't think so. Parents can still influence what their children read, although they are losing the knobs with which to adjust those inputs. I'll say more on that in a moment.
Back to the subject of solving the problem of reflecting our moral and ethical values without being sectarian. It can and must be done, otherwise it will fail to represent Americans. When you pass a law that most people agree is reflective of their desires, then it will be enforced. If you pass one that is only reflective of a few peoples' desires, or if you word it in such a way that excludes some Americans who may even agree with it in practice, that too will fail.
First of all, I am a staunch opponent to sex education in the classroom that doesn't teach abstinence and respect for traditional values. I'm convinced that this has become impossible in our public school system. But I wouldn't solve that with a religious law. It's forbidden by the Constitution. But why does it have to be religious? Why can't it simply state that sex education must be abstinence-based and be permitted by parents in order to prevent STDs and unwanted pregnancies?
I am also a staunch opponent to the redefinition of marriage. Why does this have to be a religious issue? There are plenty of non-religious people who will object. But you can make it a democratic issue. If marriage is the asking of permission from the community for permission to cling together in a legal fashion, then wouldn't it break down if more than half of the community failed to recognize unions between brothers or between families and their pets? Again, no need for religion, just democracy.
Also with respect to creationism and evolution in schools, we can teach that both are theories and neither disproves the other, except under certain circumstances that are best left up to the children to discuss with their parents.
What I'm saying is that the "cultural Christians" can serve their needs constitutionally with democracy. Most people agree to these definitions, but because of a lack of sophistication and persistence, they have failed to have their voices heard. Some people tune out when you say, "Pat Robertson teaches..." But if you say I have a right to teach my own child about the birds and the bees, that makes more sense.
What I'm saying is that principles will set us all free. The Founding Fathers knew them and bolted them into our Constitution. We've forgotten how to think about them because we've lost our standards for classical education. It's all part of the same mess, and charter schools and school vouchers should help.
The bottom line is that even if you wanted our laws to impose Christian values, it wouldn't be possible with our Constitution. But you can make the case against collective rights (which is what the same sex fanatics are doing). You can make the case against humanism taught as religion (i.e. more than just a theory). You can make the case against multiculturalism and pan-genderism -- all without bringing up a single religious dogma or doctrine.
When all else fails, you can start a charter school, acquire school vouchers for keeping your kids in for home schooling, and you can seclude yourself into a religious community. But the government is not there to use as a tool for Christianizing society. That has to come from within.
John Milton makes an impassioned plea for freedom of ideas and against the licensing of writers in his Areopagitica written in 1644. He was carefully studied by our founding fathers, as were others who argued passionately for a government that does not seek to impose religious yardsticks to our expressions or our laws. They were well aware of religious tyranny emanating from government having just experienced the rule of King Henry the 8th, who burned 100 Catholic abbeys and churches in his effort to Anglicize the church in England.
We have nothing to fear of religiously justified tyranny here because we have a powerful constitutional protection from it. That could easily change if we lose our guard and stoop to the level many propose in order to "rechristianize" a government that never was Christian in its preferences. It may have been in the days of the Puritans, but they ended up with their own problems with intolerance.
"If our government accepts cultural deviance, it is signaling a green light for out children to stray off the path."
It is up to the parents of a given child to decide what is or isn't "deviant," and then it is up to the parents of the child to get him/her on "the path" if the child strays from it. It is the parents' role - not the governments', thank God!
A free society engineers itself. A free society honors all religious beliefs, while allowing its equally protected citizens to have no particular beliefs whatsoever, if they so desire.