Has this year’s presidential campaign become too religious you ask? Absolutely. Anyone watching the coverage of this election is likely to assume the candidates are running for pastor-in-chief instead of commander-in-chief. Though the presidential election is still more than 250 days away, the candidates are engaged in a knock-down drag-out fight, and religion is often used as a weapon in that fight.
Candidates on both sides of the aisle are using religion in radically new ways within their political operations. Most of the candidates have hired campaign staffers to conduct outreach to communities of faith. While this tactic may sound innocent enough at first glance, it inevitably encourages more religious leaders to make candidate endorsements within their houses of worship, an action that is not only immoral but also illegal.
Both sets of candidates are talking more openly about their faith. While this trend has the potential to spark constructive dialogue on important moral issues, it also has lowered the bar for political dialogue as well. Candidates are forced to defend the practices and beliefs of their faith, describe how they pray and how regularly they attend services, and other questions that have no bearing on a candidate’s vision for leading this country.
The Interfaith Alliance has spoken out when candidates from either party have abused religion for partisan gain. We criticized Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR) when he claimed that the Constitution should be amended so it is in-line with “God’s standards.” Also we criticized Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) when he claimed that Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson was endorsing his campaign in his official capacity as a religious leader. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. I have witnessed more abuses of religion in this primary season than in any other election in recent memory.
Honestly, the media must accept much of the blame for elevating religion beyond its appropriate role in a campaign. The media loves to use the term “values voters,” which is really a euphemism they use to describe conservative evangelical Christians. But such language ignores the fact that all Americans vote their values, whether those values have religious underpinnings or not. Instead of asking candidates to name their favorite Bible verse, the media’s primary responsibility should be questioning the candidates’ commitment to the First Amendment’s guarantees of religious freedom. Voters who do not have a religious tradition are entitled to the same amount of representation from their elected officials as people of faith.
As this somewhat wild campaign season continues, for the good of all Americans, I urge all of us to give up our obsession with a candidate’s religiosity and focus on what is really important: a candidate’s record on and promise of support for the Constitution.
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