Enough for Seconds

Following up on Christianism, Andrew Sullivan responds to a readers email here. An excerpt:

I'm not arguing that faith should have no role in political discourse. Someone's faith will affect her politics. My faith informs my own positions on torture, the death penalty, gay dignity, the Iraq war, and so on. But in the political sphere, mere recourse to religious authority is insufficient, because, by definition, it cannot persuade those of a different faith or no faith at all. And so religious doctrines need to be translated into moral arguments, applicable to any citizen with good will and an open mind. When Tom DeLay, at a Republican gathering, invokes Christ as his ally; or when the Catholic hierarchy comes close to barring votes for Democrats; or when Jesse Jackson uses the pulpit to garner Democratic votes, they have crossed an important line. It's important to defend that line - for the sake of politics, and for the sake of faith.

The way I say it is that I'm glad that I live in a secular society rather than a theocracy because I'm free to pursue the faith that I choose in a secular society while a theocracy might try to enforce on me a faith that I don't share. Sullivan has also responded to some responses here Following up on corporate America backing gay rights, here's a Fortune/CNNMoney article by Marc Gunther with more detail about ExxonMobil:

For the most part, ExxonMobil has set an unfriendly tone when it comes to gays. When Exxon merged with Mobil in 1999, the merged company rescinded Mobil's anti-discrimination policy, which referred to sexual orientation, and chose not to extend Mobil's domestic partner benefits to new employees. (Former Mobil workers continue to get domestic partner benefits.) Its actions have put ExxonMobil is out of step with the biggest public companies. All but two companies in the FORTUNE 100- Plains All American Pipeline, an energy firm based in Houston, is the other exception-prohibit discrimination against gays. So do at least 16 states and the District of Columbia. Meanwhile, 78 of the Fortune 100 offer health and other benefits to the same-sex partners of their employees. Among them are oil companies BP America, Chevron and Shell... An ExxonMobil spokesman declined, via e-mail, to discuss the issue. Exxon says in its proxy statement that the company "has zero-tolerance discrimination and harassment policies that are comprehensive in nature, rigorously enforced, and applicable to all employees." It goes on to say that those policies prohibit "discrimination or harassment for any reason, including sexual orientation." You've got to wonder. If ExxonMobil will tell its shareholders that it opposes discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, why won't it put that into its employment policy to tell its workers the same thing?