The United States should embrace, not discourage, religious diversity

After the Tiger Woods scandal erupted and several mistresses came crawling out of the woodwork, many mainstream media personalities were discussing how he could recover from such a catastrophic blow to his career.

Fox News' Brit Hume had this to say about Tiger:

"He's said to be a Buddhist; I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be turn to the Christian faith, and you can make a total recovery."

On the other end of the spectrum, all religious beliefs were under fire during a recent airing of Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO.

Maher, an outspoken atheist, claimed that a lot of violent and detrimental tendencies stem from Christianity, and the Bible is a scary book.

HBO isn't exactly mainstream media, but Maher's views on religion are clearly known and are very controversial.

Full disclosure: I consider myself to be a devout Christian and recognize with the Episcopalian denomination and am very proud of this.

With that being said, the influence of religion in our modern world is very great, and more people are being outspoken.

However, there is a lack of religious tolerance in our country.

Hume's quote is just one example of people (especially media elites) trying to force religious views on people.

The United States is diverse but unfortunately religiously intolerant.

Religious intolerance truly came to light with the emergence of the 2008 presidential election.

During the long presidential campaign season, rumors started that then-candidate Barack Obama was a Muslim.

To rational thinkers, this wasn't even viewed as an issue. If he were a Muslim, so what?

To religious extremists, however, this was viewed as a negative, given that the Sept. 11 hijackers were Muslim extremists.

Most people who held such a negative view of the Muslim faith ignored the fact that Congress currently housed a Muslim Congressman, Keith Ellison.

There was even an instance where, at a John McCain rally, an elderly woman grabbed the microphone and claimed that she didn't like Obama because "he was an Arab."

This kind of ignorance is scary.

Differing viewpoints about a candidate's political ideas is completely acceptable and what makes our country great, but profiling somebody based on their religion or even their ethnic background is foolish and wrong.

It was sad the issue of a person's religion was brought up as a contentious issue during the presidential election.

After all, we are all entitled to practice religion freely and without consequence in this country.

During the election, and long after as well, many staunchly Christian individuals claimed America was founded to be a Christian country.

This is just simply not true.

Though most of the founding fathers identified with some form of Christianity, and our country was intended to be a nation not based on any one religion.

America was founded so those with differing religious viewpoints could practice freely without being chastised or alienated by others.

Sometimes, it's hard to see America as being this religiously tolerant today.

In an interview with New York Times Reporter Deborah Solomon, Ron Reagan Jr. (son of the late president Ronald Reagan) illustrated this very point.

When asked, "would you like to be president of the United States?"

"I would be unelectable," Reagan Jr. said. "I'm an atheist. As we all know, that is something people won't accept."

This kind of principle is not what the United States is based on.

People shouldn't be limited by their religion from pursuing their dreams and desires.

Individuals with different religious views should be able to coexist without trying to force their beliefs on one another.

The U.S. is a melting pot of religious beliefs.

We should embrace this, not discourage it.

We are not all Christians, Muslims, Jews or Buddhists.

We are all Americans – that's what unites us. Religion shouldn't divide us.