The question is why? Why would we want to open ourselves up to the tyranny of religious misinterpretation in the hands of a few unscrupulous men who could twist doctrines and dogma around to their own personal aims? You ask me not to mistrust religiously aggressive political leaders, but I know enough history to recognize the naivete in that argument. There is no advantage in providing a union of church and state, and there is everything to lose by it. We can argue what the founding fathers of this or that state wanted all we like, but you still have to prove that church and state ought to be joined at all. I would disagree with you, and many others would, as well.
It says right in the first amendment that congress shall pass no law regarding an establishment of religion. You can twist that around to mean whatever you like, but to those of us who can read English it guides us all to avoid religious entanglements in government of any kind. Oh sure, states rights, yada yada yada. But the very best states like Virginia also required reason and conviction above all else in respect to religious issues.
You're very well programmed by the theocracy machinery if you think that the first amendment enables states to oppress their citizens with religious laws. But there are many who claim it would be a good idea every day right here on this forum. Why? It's so convenient! All of your moral concerns are neatly handled if you can just use religion in government. It ties everything up in a neat bow. But it's fatally flawed: religion is subjective, and its interpretation is subject to the fallacies of mortal men who are incapable of being impartial.
...the MSM, who has been on a crusade to demonize Christians, particularly Evangelicals, for the last 40 years.
There are two issues here:
The devout are quite vulnerable to the faulty reasoning used by the theocracy machinery because we can all look around ourselves and see the results of spiritual decline. But the same machinery that wishes to bring to bear Christian law refuses to defend our borders. They refuse to limit immigration such that our culture can defend its Christian traditions. They refuse to limit trade with China, a nation this minute arming itself to attack Taiwan and/or Japan, two of our more important allies in the far east. They refuse to recognize that demand for abortion is almost directly proportionate to a sense of economic optimism. In other words, these right wing Christians are interested in the appearance of mercy and love and forbearance, but when it comes to business, they'll look the other way no matter how serious the implications are.
All this is happening while the federal government is paying our tax dollars to mosques and other Islamic entities for "faith based ministries." Why? Because the Republican party knows that to prefer Christians would violate a sense of fairness in an already Constitutionally questionable policy of financing religious entities. It's a shambles of a policy.
Lies, lies, lies. No one want the state and the government to be joined, we want to undo leftist revisionism that denies our nations heritage and the true original intent of our Constitution! We want our STOLEN religious freedom back, and we won't stop until the EVIL, Unconstitutional, tyrannical ruling of the Activist Judicial oligarchy are NULLIFIED, for good! Anyone who stands in our way is the ENEMY of freedom and will be tossed into the trash bin of history with all the other ignorant lies of the past!
All of your moral concerns are neatly handled if you can just use religion in government.
The opposite is the lack of all morality in government, which has brought us precisely to the place we are today! An Abortionist's grist mill! People can't even oppose abortion because BIGOTS LIKE YOU accuse them of being theocrats if they dare argue that life is a SACRED INALIENABLE GOD GIVEN RIGHT! Your refusal to even allow this question to be considered as the basis of law proves you have NOTHING in common with ANY of the founders and places you squarely in the camp of the scum-sucking ACLU COMMUNISTS!
You are living in a world of perception, not reality. Even I addressed several of your 'fears' but you speak as if I did not.