After reading Walter Backstrom’s opinion piece titled “Republicans Give Conservatives a Bad Name” I thought it necessary to respond to some misconceptions Mr. Backstrom and other conservatives share.

First, the idea that the media is over-liberalized is just flat out false. Fox News routinely garners a majority of day-to-day news viewers. Talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh dominate daytime talk shows. Even our local Bellevue Reporter’s opinion staff consists of two conservative columnists.

I think that the liberal media Mr. Backstrom is referring to can better be called secular media for their attempt to report news that is free from the biases of religion. In that point, I would agree with Mr. Backstrom. The media is secular, for good reason.

Second, the financial crisis is not a result of “taking God out of the equation.” The financial crisis was caused both by Republican and Democrat business people and political leaders, many of whom would call themselves Christian, who acted out of greed to significantly relax lending, banking, and investing practices. Seeing as though a huge majority of our political leaders need to call themselves Christian out of political necessity, one could make a reasonable argument that keeping God in the political equation didn’t do us any favors.

It is possible for one to do “right” without believing that “right” is decreed in a belief in God. You need not be a believer in God to believe in the necessity of social justice in American life.

It is important to point out that the framers themselves “took God out of the equation” by not mentioning him in the Constitution, the document which serves as the foundation for our government. Again, for good reason. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and George Washington, to name a few, understood that in order to protect the rights of both believers and non-believers it was necessary that we have a secular government to protect the rights of both. Even today this is necessary given that non-believers are the second largest “religious” minority, and growing, in the U.S.

I understand Mr. Backstrom’s anger and frustration and agree with some of what he said in his article. I appreciate his love for his religion and for his country. Not only do I think his Christian conservative voice is important, but essential, in the democratic public square.

But please, can’t we agree that religion is much too good a force to sully it by insisting that our political leaders be driven by it? It was, after all, a president who took us into a “useless [and bloody] war” who claimed that Jesus Christ was his most significant philosopher. Can’t we also agree that the non-religious members of our community want as much good for this country as those who have found God and deserve not to be blamed for all ills that confront us today?

Paul Sutton, Bellevue