Religious Beliefs Have No Place in Constitution

Constitution is a document that set up the way the government is run and organized. It is a document in which these laws and principles are written down for all citizen of the land, not for a particular group of peoples following a certain religious faith. Law should be set up based on the aspiration of the people, including non-believers, and those who do not follow any organized religion. Secular and spiritual affairs cannot be mixed. Globally, only a few countries have declared a state religion in the constitution. The majority of governments in the world have separated religion from affairs of the states. Declaring a state religion is therefore, non-democratic. A civilized society should be organized and run by all the people living in the same land/country. In a democratic government, Buddhists, Christians, and Muslims, Hindus and Atheists have equal opportunity to participate in governing on an equal footing. I, for one, cannot accept the demand of the group of monks in Thailand that Buddhism be written in the newly drafted Constitution as a “State Religion”. The demand already is encouraging further divisiveness among the people in the country. It is best for Thailand to remain a secular state as before.

Filed under Thailand, Travel |