Angela wrote
>want to have a go at explaining the prevalence of tibetan buddhists -
>i'm assuming tibetan, is that right? - amongst US rich, powerful or
>just famous folks? how does this work in (or not) with the christian
>injunction in US politics? everyone who runs for office has to
>announce their christianity, no?
Actually, the Buddhists who were involved in the fundraising caper in their temple which involved Al Gore were members of a Taiwan-based branch of Buddhism, most or all of whom seemed to be immigrants. There does seem to be an interest in Tibetan Buddhism amongst the glitteratti in Hollywood and elsewhere but I know little about it. It certainly is not required to be a Christian to be elected in the US and any explicit attempt to impose such a requirement would be unconstitutional. In some states, though, it would be difficult to get many votes for a non-Christian candidate, but in others it is not a problem. There are lots of Jews in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, for example. At the national level there have never been more than a handful of Hindus, Buddhists, or Muslims elected and I'm not sure there are any avowed athiests in Congress, either, but there is certainly no formal bar to any of them. K