Embracing All Religions Is Critical For Tolerant Society

To the editors:



David Golding’s comment (“A Defense of Prejudice,” Nov. 2) opens a very interesting line of argument which seems at first to be a breath of fresh air. Certainly any person is free to think about any religion as he will and to communicate his thoughts freely. Golding reasons that a person may communicate his feelings about a religion by voting against an adherent of a religion which the voter holds to be erroneous or unhealthy or just plain wrong.

Yet Golding’s argument jars common sense. The wise voter must consider the candidate as an individual and with specific regard to public issues. Secondly, there are immense differences in individual beliefs among adherents of any religion, and to exclude any person on the general basis of his creed would be irrational and manifestly unfair, whatever the spurious generalization uttered to explain the policy.

Golding is right that a person may legally vote as he wishes on any basis he chooses and may say so. But doing so on the basis of a candidate’s creed would be irrational and intolerant. If most people adopted the policy of voting down the adherents of particular religions, then the U.S. would take another step away from tolerance and freedom.



WILLIAM J. FERRARI

Rochester, Mich.

November 2, 2006