it was visible through the eastern pacific, lasted about another hour and if you missed it you have to wait another 18 years for the next one. >> just a reminder, keep up on all the news, aljazeera.com. fp aljazeera.com >> i'm ali velshi. this is a special edition of "third rail." the fervor of pope francis's visit underscores how many are devoted to religion. but that seems at odds with the u.s. constitution which never once mentions god. ists a tension in american life that began with the country's founding and may never be resolved. >> amazing

grace ♪ >> american presidents often become america's pastors, legally though, politics and religion are not supposed to plix. >> i believe in an america where the separation of church and state are absolute. >> church and state are and must remain separate. >> but separation of church and state remains controversial. >> this nonsense about separation of church and state has gotten way way beyond the bounds of what the founders of our constitution thought. >> there are plenty of politicians who agree with that. >> i see no separation between my faith and my personal and professional lives. >> and then there's the question of whether all faiths are even welcome in american politics. >> i would not advocate that we put a muslim in charge of this nation. i absolutely would not agree with that. >> so is america a secular nation and what is the law of this land when it comes to its

many faiths and politics? >> whatever we once were, we are no longer a christian inflation at least not just. we are also a jewish nation, a muslim nation and a buddhist nation and a hindu nation and a nation of nonbelievers. >> i must begin our exploration with faith and politics with allen dershowitz, author of many books including abraham, the world's first but not last jewish lawyer. you've not lost your humor about coming up with books. religion and the state, the u.s. you wouldn't know this if you had been watching presidential politics and debates. but the u.s. don't endorse a particular religion, you know this better than i do but the constitution says, no religious test shall be required by a milk office in the united states. we are not supposed to have this as a

litmus test yet running for office this seem to be a point of faith for people to talk about their faith. >> in the history of the world not to make a person's religion a point of politics. jude aism that lasted much into the 20th century so it's a great thing about the american constitution that we don't provide religious tests. polls will show people won't vote for an atheist or a catholic. how many people know that bernie sanders is jewish? how many people know their religious affiliation of candidates,. >> but from the talk you would think most of them are christians because they invoke god of what was, particularly in the protestant tradition but a number of catholics running.

ben carson made a comment about muslims not can't be president. >> the idea that a candidate would say, a muslim can't be president it's like a black man can't be president or a woman can't be president. >> they all know that clearly a muslim can be president but ben carson is saying they really shouldn't. >> and i think he understood that would resonate with a certain number of people in his base and that's worse. leaders have to demand the best of their base not the worst of their base. that's kind of conversation you may wants to have in a bar but when you are running for president you elevate, you don't reduce and engage in bigotry. that's bigotry. we all know individual muslims we would be throild have thrilled to have as

president of the united states, i also know ones i wouldn't want, or jews or catholics. religion for most americans is not a choice, most live and die in the same race they were born into. >> when 80% of americans say they're religious in some way and that somehow translates into who they would elect as president, would they be just as happy to understand that a president is guided by values and morals that they compare to what they think of as religion? >> there is no relationship between morals and religion. zero relationship, there's nothing to say that atheists are less moral by actions or beliefs. it is a fallacy that religion or morality in practice have anything to do with each other. we have had atheist presidents, we may have had gay presidents,

for all we know, but atheists were as deep in the closet as gays were, for many years. you have to wear your religious affiliation on your sleeve, that's wrong. we're the only western country that -- in europe, nobody knows, in israel people don't pronounce whether they go to synagogue or not go to synagogue. we live in a secular western world in which people should be free to have strong religious beliefs but not to be bigoted about their religions. >> we succeed so well in american for one reason that is we embrace in a lot of ways our pluralism. our american society flawed, but coming together stronger together than individually. why doesn't that work into religion, into religion and politics? >> it does except when leaders pander. whether leaders pander and say,

i'm more religious than you are, we didn't hear that from john kennedy when he was running for president but we hear it from santorum and other candidates who proclaim, we hear it from justice scalia on the supreme court, who says that his catholicism transcends his institutionalism. if he would have to choose he would have to choose catholicism. >> president kennedy did in fact say he would be guided in his faith by, his catholic faith by the pope not in his governmental decision. that was a bigger concern probably today than it was, the pope have been one of the few people from the outside to address congress. >> i love him i think he's terrific, he reflects the best of religious traditions but he's very controversial both in south

america in the vatican and in the united states because he doesn't represent the moss traditional conservative approach to cliquism. >> he's getting away with things that most popes don't have. a little bit of cherry picking about what type of religion is good and when the pope says he wants to deal with income inequality and climate change you're not going to hear -- >> you might hear sanders talk about this. in fact sanders who is jewish may be closer to this pope than any other candidate. >> last year at baylor university, you said in a speech there's increasing disdain for religion. i was wondering when you said this on you one land we're in a society where it shouldn't matter as much. you do draw a distinction, you don't think we should have disdain for religion. >> absolutely. >> and pluralism should trump -- >> we

want an accommodation. we don't want the state to tell people what they can think and when there's a conflict between what a person could do and what a person's religion demands and what civic society demands we try our best to accommodate. the case obviously involving a clerk and gay marriage is an instance where we have tried to accommodate. but the accommodation there seems to be simple. if she can't perform marriages she should quit the job. >> what's the trick about the fact that she gets to be put there by the people? >> because probably the constitution doesn't give the majorities the right to be bigoted. the constitution has its own demands. even if 99% of americans oppose gay marriage if the constitution says gays have to be treated equally, that's the way it is. when degraitio desegregation occurred, the major were against it. gay marriage is now one of them.

>> in accepting an water a aware freedom of religion, do not publicly proclaim your own religious devotion affiliation and practices or attack those of your opponents. i think we share a view on this. >> right. >> how do you tell your voter i'm governed by these principles, these values? >> what you tell them is the values of are governed by, compassion, equality but don't relate them to a particular religious creed and don't critique your opponent. george washington drove his wife to church but stayed outside. our founding fathers were deists, had a belief in god and the here

after. >> isn't that a short hands for this is a set of my beliefs? >> no, they are not. you can express your sets of releafs without saying that they come from god, come for jesus, president. that is not appropriate political dialogue. >> that's come from a surprising number of candidates, that god told them to run for president. >> i know, i know. god has better things to do than decide which candidates, as abraham lincoln once said, the question is not whose side is god on but are we on god's side? if you want to be on god's side do it privately, live your life in a godly way but don't bring religion into politics. >> allen dershowitz . the third rail panel is next.

>> former gop strategist and a pat >> we're here to fully get into the nuances of everything that's going on, not just in this country, but around the world. >> ...as if there were no cameras here, would be the best solution. >> this goes to the heart of the argument >> to tell you the stories that others won't cover. how big do you see this getting? getting the news from the people who are affected. >> people need to demand reform... >> we're here to provide the analysis... the context... and the reporting that allows you to make sense of your world. >> ali velshi on target only on al jazeera america

>> every saturday night. >> i lived that character. >> go one on o

>> i wake in the morning i wait on the lord and i ask him to

give me the strength to do right by our country and our people. >> ever since i was a little girl i felt the trust in god. >> our laws do not come from man, they come from god. >> when you turn your heart over to christ, it changes your life. >> god bless america. >> god bless you and god bless the united states of america. >> we're going to pick up our conversation on faith and politics with a question of candidates who don't believe in god. let's bring in our political panel. joe watkins is a former white house aid to president george h. w. bush, pastor with the christ evangelical christian church . growing one george william welcome to all of you thank you for being here. joe, former white house staffer,

form he gop strategist and a pastor of a church in a poor neighborhood. >> yes right. >> if a candidate shared your views on the world your beliefs but was an atheist would you vote for them? >> sure, sure. at the end of the day, what matters is not what somebody's religious affiliation or beliefs, but whether it comes to politics and government where they stand on the issues i care about. on the issues of faith and love. >> what are the issues? >> everything is tied to faith but i realize most people don't necessarily take their faith seriously. you know just because somebody was born a protestant or born a catholic that they take their faith seriously, is imbued, how they would legislate if they were elected official. for me i care about poor people, i care about making sure that people who don't have a chance

have a level playing field to play on. i care about housing, education many i want kids that don't have a great education have a chance to great education. i care about all this. >> pardon the pun, you are agnostic on that. you heard my interview with allen dershowitz. we talked about a 2013 pew poll, people are less likely to support a president who is an atheist, than a president who cheated on their spouse, is gay? why is atheism the third rail? >> the nature of american society, still a very religious society we have set this expectation, to some degree it's just tradition in this country. >> we are founded on people who came here for religious freedom. so this is a human part of the american psyche. >> or maybe they came here to be

able to have their own religion. >> freedom of religion not freedom from religion. >> and each state had their own religion at one point. and atheists are like the big other now. people don't know who they are, they don't -- >> and this came up in the conversation with demp dershowitz. he said something interesting to me which i'm not sure i agreed with and that is that there's a disconnect between morals and religion. >> there is. >> the idea that they don't necessarily share your morals and views. >> this is what mainstream america does, put labels on people, that's the conversations they want to have. they're not having a real conversation, they're having a fake conversation. atheism is a huge gray blob of people and there's all sorts of people in this mix, everyone from richard dawkins, who is the new atheist guy who is willing

to go after people to people like my self, i'm agnostic, i don't believe a man in the sigh, i believe in the big electron like my dad used to say, i believe in living a ethical life, making the world a better place and that's my responsibility to do that. that sounds pretty moral to me. >> it depends who you are. atheism as long as you are talking about the concept of atheism, that's a concept that a lot of americans don't take kindly to. but if you put a face on it, and it's your face and somebody you know and like it's a very, very different -- >> there's a poll in june that indicated that 60% of americans say they would vote for a muslim presidential candidate, 38% said they would not, i don't believe that michael, i think that's people answering a poll question in a nice way. but that said the generic muslim

candidate, we haven't seen one. jeb bush, marco rubio praising the pope as a spiritual leader, a lot of this talk is about inequality. about the poor. this is an international conversation right now this concept of inequality. and yet you have these same presidential candidates, particularly the republicans, going out there and talking about cutting the very programs that the pope would actually not cut. >> well, this goes to the heart of this long standing tension in the republican party which is the party establishment the people who really pull the levers, you have big money donors, it's basically pro-business group and the policies that ultimately emerge from candidate after candidate are tax cuts, that disproportionately favor the wealthy, they have a philosophy as to why that's good for the poor but not everyone agrees it will work. and voters end up siding can with them on issues of social conservatism.

ending up going along with an economic agenda this actually doesn't match what their faith would suggest. that's the alliance that's made. >> you're absolutely right. the republican party of the 1950s and 60s was the party that made sure that civil rights got passed. >> but when there are only two parties to vote for you don't get the full range of conversation politically or socially. you have to kind of pick and choose. you're stuck with i kind of like them on this but not on this. like i said before, there's not a real conversation going on. we're not managing the conversation. the big donors are managing the conversation. >> let me ask you this. 70% of white evangelical think, a number of gop candidates, talk about a war on christianity? do they have a point? >> no. >> does the left go too far on

attacking conservative christians? >> i think there's opposition to this religiousity that they feel attacked. i don't feel threatened, you're free to do what you want. >> it all makes for about television. anger. at the end of the day i just hold that there's popular religion in america, that is to say, americans classify themselves as one religion or another but not faithful adherence. >> i think we get professional moralists in the media who have a political agenda and they use this card, this religious card in order to get attention for their ideas and issues and they put these politicians, are you with us or against us? if you are not with us, you're not a religions plan. the. >> the late christopher hitchens

for whom i have great respect, he was an amazing attack dog, agree with him offer or not but there is a blurring of issues, religious make, middle class and white america, which generally feels their culture is under assault. about a lot of things that has to do with supreme court rulings on gay maicialg, t marriage, donald trump has been actually leading with evangelical voters, in iowa, for instance, because they see him standing up for a strain of american culture that is in many ways in sync they say is dying but in many ways is in sync, that they see under assault and falling around them, not only christopher hitchens who they think is obnoxious, because of

what the supreme court is doing, there's a general sense that america is changing and sometimes that is articulated as my faith is under attack. >> absolutely. this is once again fear of the other, of the unknown, not understanding that all hell is going to break loose if this country becomes a more diverse, concept of place. >> the religious right in the country has been a political force from a media perspective and political perspective since about ronald reagan's election in 1988. since then it has suffered almost unbroken string of political defeat, on same sex marriage on abortion on prayer on the federal level. on state court issues, where is the religious right in the discourse anyway? >> well i think it's definitely losing crucial battles. the opposition against gay marriage was a real dig the

trenches, hunker down, this is a pivotal moment for us, and they really lost big. we're finally starting to understand on questions of social mores and dignity we are leaping ahead. it is true, you can find, organizing on a local level, the religious right still has some outposts where they are holding territory so to speak. but i think they are really losing ground. >> so here's the challenge. americans now fit into a bunch of categories. you may be an evangelical, but if you are unemployed evangelical, your issue isn't that, you're thrig about jobs. you may be an evangelical you may be anti-gun or pro-gun so you can't just appeal to people nowadays based on that alone. >> i remember in iowa, evangelicals telling me it's

nice you lump us in an evangelicals we have other issues. >> as a woman you know i do feel like that the religious right has undermined my rights to control my own body and my own decisions. that does scare me that they have closed hundreds of abortion clinics in many states, it is a federal right, federal law that we have to protect my right. >> you're talking about women, there's a demographic reality that favors a democratic candidate, can you have a republican presidential candidate win but not one who stakes out a position too far on the right. how do republicans square that? >> the way that happens, the way the elect ralg map looks republicans can probably keep control of the house and senate but not any time soon. so the only republican that's going to be able to win is somebody that cannot only retain base which is very regionalized ebay, the red states, but also,

draw heavily on int independents and republicans. >> empower these evangelicals we're talking about iowa and south carolina,. >> disproportionately. >> you have to zig to the right and back to the center. >> and we have all the video. well look at this, look at what they said six months ago, now they're saying this, oh dear. >> great conversation. thanks for joining us, joe, michael and calie. the conversation continues on our website , aljazeera.com/thirdrail. and you can catch my daily show "ali velshi on target," >> what do you want american's to understand?

>> there's so much injustice. >> workers are being injured constantly.