While the rest of the raft of presidential candidates are busily proclaiming their firm belief in a Christian God, former Alaska senator Mike Gravel has recorded a delightfully frank denouncement of religion in politics.

The quirky Democratic presidential candidate says what's obvious to any student of history: That aligning specific religious views with politics is a dangerous exercise.

"I am deeply insulted that in some areas that not only is evolution is shunned but efforts are made to substitute it with creationism and all other kinds of teachings, which corrupt our youth," he says in a YouTube video recorded on Saturday. "There’s no foundation for this. I think it’s unfortunate. We’re regressing in these areas, and so I think we have responsibility to our children to provide them with the greatest scientific information available to all of us, and that begins with respect to evolution."

Gravel goes on to talk about morality, and how trying to legislate morality reflects a failure of the religious community.

Clearly pointing to former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a Republican who recently suggested that we ought to amend the constitution to be brought in line with "God's standards," Gravel said: "I ... really exhort as public policy that we concentrate on keeping religion out of politics, and keeping a very, very strong separation between church and state. Otherwise you will take the oppressive nature of the state and marry it with the oppressive nature of religion, and that is the ultimate oppression of human beings."

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