There is another serious effort under way to try to organise the drafting of an effective national constitution. The job of the second chief drafter of the year, Meechai Ruchupan, is doubly difficult, after the first one failed. Now, along with a mind-boggling list of suggestions, precedents, instructions and attempts at oversight, comes the unwanted and unneeded demand that the Constitution Drafting Committee make Buddhism the official state religion.
It is vital to note that this idea, raised last week by several Buddhist individuals, is nothing new. It was an actual issue when Mr Meechai and others were birthing the 2007 constitution. At that time, it was judged almost universally to be a distraction from the attempt to forge a decent supreme law. The circumstances and proper conclusion are no different today. There are plenty of issues to try to get right in a new national charter. Installing a state religion is not one.
Korn Meedee, the secretary of a committee to promote Buddhism as the state religion told this newspaper last week that if Buddhism becomes the single official religion of the state, it would help the group to "to eradicate non-pure forms of Buddhism". Right there, of course, is where this campaign should be rejected.
The group seeks the state's backing to institute -- at first, at least -- a cleansing of Buddhism. It is not designed to address the problems that most Thai Buddhists see such as widespread temple corruption and elitism at all levels of the ecclesiastic hierarchies. The group wants to punish other Buddhists considered to be lacking in their faith. And it wants to use state facilities and state power, not just to support such a "cleasing" drive but to enforce it.
Almost everyone will see the fallacious and uncharitable nature that goes against the Buddhism we know in Thailand. But there are valid concerns that the supporters of national religion would not stop with "purification" of Buddhism. One need not look far to see anti-religious and intolerant actions in the very name of religion. The "militant Buddhists" of Myanmar and their sometimes violent attempts to repress Muslims are one example. There are many more.
Thailand protects all religions. This is a legal mandate in constitutions. The nation does not only tolerate all religions as a fact of life. It protects them in law. Freedom to practise religion or not to practise religion are common to custom and law.
There is no need to tinker with this system, as it works. There is no important opposition to freedom of religion. To put it another way, nearly everyone supports this important concept. Mr Korn and his group tried to make a case that Buddhism deserves special treatment under the supreme law. They have failed. A plea from a group of monks to provide special state support for Buddhists in the far South is not logical either. Enshrining special treatment of Buddhism will only serve to convince the propagandists of the South about religious discrimination in the Muslim-dominated region.
There is no room in the new constitution for special treatment of a single religion, any more than the charter should disfavour any religion. Buddhism has a special place already in Thailand, by dint of numbers of course, and by the national trinity: nation, religion and King. Mr Meechai can dispose of this matter quickly, and move on with important matters.