I’ve had this one sitting in the blog folder for a while, and since it’s Freethinker’s Day, I decided to tackle it (especially since photographs still aren’t happening too often.) If I don’t finish this, I’ll set it aside for Freethought Day instead and just change this paragraph.
The U.S. really has an inordinate number of religious politicians – or at least, those that claim to be. Obviously, they wouldn’t be doing this unless it provided some benefit to them, because it really has no bearing whatsoever on their jobs, and to be blunt, they actually take oaths to uphold the Constitution which expressly forbids them from any form of legislature along such lines, the old ‘separation of church and state’ jazz. But even without such restrictions, their job, their focus, is supposed to be on the community at large, everyone, not just select portions no matter what their number. And there are more than enough things for them to do than parroting very specific bits of scripture or worrying about the state of our souls – the whole ‘free country’ thing means we can do that for ourselves.
[You will notice that, while there are religious exemption laws for things like vaccinations and education, there isn’t any such thing for marriage or abortion laws. Funny that.]
So clearly, what we’re seeing is pandering, the attempt to influence the voters that really don’t understand what a politician is supposed to do and instead have a kneejerk reaction to the bare label of ‘religious’ or ‘christian,’ which in their eyes means something good must come of it.
The amusing thing is that it takes no effort whatsoever to determine that the vast majority of these ‘religious’ politicians demonstrate absolutely no traits of believers; too many of them act in ways distinctly against the precepts of christianity (naturally, it has to be christianity too – remember the huge fuss over the idea that Barack Obama was rumored to be muslim, like that had the slightest bearing on anything?) Lying, theft, and adultery are in evidence far too often, which would presumably determine who wasn’t really a follower of christ, but then we also have the bare traits of being bought by corporate interests, rerouting campaign and office funds for personal and family use, nepotism, cronyism, and a host of other things not specifically against any deadly sins, but not at all what anyone imagines to define ‘good.’ These aren’t hard to find.
Even the idea that someone professes their belief as if it’s important is not just ignorant of their office, but rather crass, like bringing up their car, their spouse’s measurements, or their high-school sports achievements – pretty much a sign of insecurity in trying to impress people. And seriously, claiming to be any religion is about the lowest bar that can be set, because no religion that I can think of actually has any standards to be met before the label can be claimed. For the clout that this seems to have with so many people, you’d think that one would have to accomplish something to lay claim, but no – just announce it, you’re golden. We have to pass tests just to be allowed to drive, but god apparently has lower standards than that, and far too many religious voters certainly do.
There is even an abysmal history of those caught in egregious violations, not just of their religious precepts, but the requirements of their office, who are then ‘forgiven’ and permitted to carry on; somehow, this violation of trust and duty is not at all the insult to the voters who believed in the religious claims, what we might imagine worthy of immediate contempt at least; instead, this is too often treated as a simple mistake, like forgetting to take the chicken out to thaw. Because, of course, no one could possibly lie about being religious and by extension good.
Do good people take advantage of the terminally, inexcusably gullible? Kind of stretches the definition of ‘good,’ one would think. But a lot of politicians have no problem with it, and far too many people fail to spot the sucker bet that it is, walking right into it and congratulating themselves for their blindness rather than seeing religious claims as the biggest red flag there is in politics. Personally, I would sooner vote for a politician with a criminal record than one that parades their piety, even slightly, because the latter is definitely aiming at the idiot vote, and it’s hard to even imagine that there’s a useful purpose to this.