Thursday, November 20, 2003

God's Law: It's strange -- Europeans often criticize U.S. politicians for invoking the name of God in speeches and whatnot. They generally prefer their politicians to be more secular.

But now a number of countries want the European Union's Constitution to make a reference to God in the preamble. Many Europeans hope to acknowledge the continent's Christian roots in its new body of law.

Ireland has come out in support of mentioning a deity, joining Poland, Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria, Portugal, Slovakia, and the Netherlands, according to The Scotsman. France is opposing the idea, and I imagine that others will as well.

The U.S. Constitution makes no reference to God, and its Bill of Rights specifically prohibits the government from establishing a religion. Considering Europe is filled with people from diverse religious backgrounds (Christians, Muslims, Jews, Atheists), I would hope that the EU would do the same.

On a completely irrelevant note, I know that I'm an ignorant American, but European newspapers need to explain the acronyms that they use in the stories. When looking for an online article about this subject, I ran across this story about the ratification of the EU Constitution. Although it is written in English, I could barely understand any of it. The paper should at least include a handy reference guide to explain what "NOS", "WD", and "PvdA" actually mean.