Let’s not kid ourselves. America is a Christian nation—founded by Christians and still run by Christians.

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When I became an atheist during my first year of college (thanks to my leftover high school obsession with Ayn Rand, and subsequent introduction to Sartre and Camus), I talked about the utter absurdity of believing in a divinity to anyone who cared to listen, and to a number of others (including my Catholic mother) who did not.

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Theologians such as St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas have, more out of necessity than desire, waded through treacherous ground to arrive at “just war” theories that stand up to Christian scrutiny.

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"Look out the window," I tell my students each fall in my Women's Spirituality class. "See that beautiful tree? If you believed that God was immanent in the world, if the world was God's body, would it give you pause about chopping it down? Would you think twice about tearing at the grass when you are bored, if you believed that somehow with that tiny act, you were tearing at the fabric of the divine?”

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What I believe about gay marriage and gay clergy—that anyone who identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) should have the same access to these opportunities (and all others, for that matter) as straight people—owes nothing to the Catholic tradition in which I was raised. These beliefs grew out of my liberal political persuasion and my friendships with members of the LBGT community.

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Hic, haec, hoc…huis, huis, huis…

When I was in high school—a diocesan parish Catholic institution—all honors students had to take four years of Latin. This was in the late 1980’s. Old-fashioned or not, Latin was the official tongue of the Catholic intellectual tradition and therefore part of our preparation to go out into the wider world according to the nuns that ran my school.

This made sense to my Italian Catholic mother and grandmother, both of whom remembered the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass well, and, in my mother’s case, had endured long years of schooling in Latin growing up in the 1940’s and 1950’s. This is not to say that Mom and Gram did not enjoy the mass in the vernacular, but there was something about it that the more familiar, informal English language version couldn’t quite capture, they used to say.

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I am sitting in Balthazar, one of New York City’s famed cafés, immortalized by the fab four on Sex and the City and purveyor of cappuccinos and Eggs Benedict to the well-heeled fashion gurus of SOHO before they head off for their designer days. It is the Monday following New York City’s fall fashion week (which, incidentally, showcases the styles for the coming spring, not fall), and Balthazar is buzzing with chatter, everyone with their copy of WWD (Women’s Wear Daily)—except for me, that is. I am listening in as the man next to me speaks on his cell phone in French, then Italian, then in English and watching as women in outfits I only fantasize about wearing sip their coffees and read the paper.

It’s also the eve of the sixth anniversary of September 11th. I’m not sure I have much of a message for religious extremists—unless this survivors’ reflection (and that is not a typo—I mean that in a collective sense) counts as a sort of pacifist, tangential kind of resistance.

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The real question is not whether this year’s presidential campaign is too religious or even whether secular ideas get short shrift in the conversation. It’s whether we, as citizens, can come to terms with the fact that secularism is a theory, not a practical reality.

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I like Barack Obama. A lot. If he wins the nomination I will vote for him come November. If anyone can repair the United States’ reputation around the globe, Obama can, and this country needs a president who can mend fences in this regard.

But on the subjects of faith and fervor, I am of two minds about Obama.

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