No More Kings: Iran and the Importance of Separating Church and State

I’ve been glued to the Internet all weekend after riots broke out in Iran over the theocracy’s blatant disregard for the will of the people. The election results announced were so preposterously weighted in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s favor that one column I saw mocking it was titled Ahmadinejad Wins Stanley Cup. No modern event more clearly demonstrates the dangers of mixing church and state than what has been transpiring in Iran since Friday’s farce of an election.

There are many people out there who argue that “America is founded on Christian Principles,” but the Federalist Papers, the founders main defense of the Constitution, never mention the Bible, instead they reference Greece and Rome as republics to model after. No, democracy isn’t the mode of government founded on Christianity, for that, you would have to look to the monarchy, where there is a king appointed by god to rule the people. This was exactly what America’s founders were trying to end forever in crafting our Constitution.

Iran is a theocracy, just like the monarchies of old Europe, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the king appointed by the word of god, as only the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is able to hear it. The protests in Iran may likely be crushed, and that may reaffirm the theocracy’s power, but such self-destructive governance will eventually collapse. Just ask any of old Europe’s kings today.

For a very entertaining, first-person account of someone who lived Iran’s history I highly recommend taking in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, available as either two graphic novels or an animated film: