Religion in politics

This is my personal view. It is therefore not objective. It is my belief that it is important for an elected leader to be a person of faith. However, there must be seperation of church and state. Without a higher purpose, one will easily lose hope and therefore be unsteady during times of crisis. However, I want my elected officials to be believers in God, what I don't want is pastors running the nation. The specifics of a person's faith are not important to me. I do not care if an elected official is Jewish, Protestant, Catholic, Mormon, or whatever. If religion influences someones views, fine. But what is bad is if someone uses their religion to influence every last detail of how they govern. Frankly, that is why it is hard for me to vote for individuals who are part of the "religious right." Candidates I have supported in the past have been men or women of faith, but their faith simply influenced them, it did not dictate their views to them. I fear that having a person who allows faith to purely dictate their views should not be in public office because they are leading or legislating on behalf of a government, not a religious institution. However, on the contrary, having an elected leader with no faith means that they don't have a higher calling and sometimes, they would be more likely to negatively effect those of faith. For example, if catholic adoption agencies choose not to adopt to same-sex couples, that is their choice. But, if an atheist writes a book, it should not be banned from a public library. The great thing about our society is that we can have religion, but that we have varying degrees of religious culture and thought. Protecting that culture matters, but using that culture as the basis for all law can be harmful.