All religion is cultural mythology, believed by its followers to be historical fact, codified into laws to create a conformist, orderly society and ritualized into practices to give it power and authenticity.

Like it or not, our country was founded as a secular republic. Practice your mythology in private and let others be who they are, in freedom and equality.

We citizens should be fighting to honor the spirit of our founding principles: “All men are created equal … promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty …government of the people, by the people and for the people … (and) life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.” All of these words are inspiring.

Yet we have the government of career politicians, by the lawyers and lobbyists for the corporations and the wealthy. We don’t have capitalism, we have feudalism. Congress and executives live high on the wealth created by those of us who actually work and more people are homeless and hungry and it’s all because greed, selfishness and dishonesty have replaced respect for the contributions of the working classes. There’s the real moral decay — money and power is more important than people and social progress.

We’re still polluting our planet and extracting finite resources, insane misogynists are trying to overrun Afghanistan while our soldiers need more support, many public schools are failing our children … and we’re arguing over who should be allowed to marry?

Get a grip, people!

Joanne D’Unger, Leeds