Politics is making a mess on the religious landscape. The tangling of issues and religion are getting so complex that it takes more than an industrial strength de-tangler to sort them out. The stakes are high in this new political battleground. Rumors are flying, innuendos are being whispered and dirty tricks are being played. All in the name of "faith". Spin doctors have found another piece of turf to pollute, based on the discovery that the religious Christian right (30% of Bush's support system) was largely undecided in this race.

And spin it they have, as part of their lust for the votes. It seems there are several distinct event-zones.

1. The press seems to have determined that a faith-based or values-based candidate is a conservative, white, evangelical, fundamentalist, anti-abortion, anti-gay-rights Christian. This may have been originally a position of the religious right alone, but it has become part of the press parlance.

Michelle at Metacentricities says:

It’s interesting to think about the press, and the bias the press has, especially in this time. What the press says, and how it says it, is pretty darned important - it’s the way that most people get their information about politics, and the presidential campaigns.
I’ve been thinking some about the Obama/Huckabee victories in Iowa, and what people are saying about it. In particular, I’ve been interested in the whole issue of how faith is playing out - Obama’s faith, Huckabee’s faith, and the faith of voters. Faith in Public life had this recent post about what was missing. Two separate polls of Democrats and Republican caucus-goers asked different questions of the Dems and the Republicans. They asked Republicans whether or not they were evangelical, but didn’t ask that of the Democrats. Was that because they didn’t want to know? Or didn’t think it was important? Or didn’t care?
Faith in Public Life says:

So why are CNN and NBC still treating evangelicals as the Republicans’ property? Their polls don’t even account for the possibility that evangelicals can play a significant role in the Democratic caucus. That’s some serious institutional bias.

It is, indeed.

It turns out that the Democrats were asked whether or not they were union members, not whether or not they were evangelical. Faith In Public Life adds:

Thirty three percent of Iowa evangelicals voted for Kerry in 2004. ...So why are CNN and NBC still treating evangelicals as the Republicans' property? Their polls don't even account for the possibility that evangelicals can play a significant role in the Democratic caucus. That's some serious institutional bias. (Ditto for the flipside - not accounting for union members' role in the Republican caucus.) Reporters and pundits cannot produce accurate stories and commentary if all they have to work with is such hidebound data.

2. Some candidates are treating the election more like a campaign of Warlords rather than a meeting of candidates. It is, on some levels, a primitive brute activity designed to capture turf and alienate the populace from any competing Warlord's actions.The Warlord in charge has the "right" religion. Others are suspect, dangerous, threatening.

Vanessa at Trans Political says:

America was founded on freedom of religion. We hear this often to help make the argument for including religious influence in every aspect of government. However, this freedom was set up to promote a pluralism of various beliefs, not a state-sanctioned uniform religion.

3. Religious prejudice is alive and well and living in America. Just hint that a candidate may have some connection to any Muslim and watch eyebrows raise.

One of the most outrageous acts was a mailing of a supposed Romney Christmas card to the SC Republican electorate.

The mailer, which says it is "Paid for by the Boston Massachusetts Temple," displays a quote from Mormon apostle Orson Pratt saying that God had multiple wives:

"We have now clearly shown that God the father had a plurality of wives, one or more being eternity by whom he begat our spirits as well as the spirit of Jesus, his first born, and another being upon the earth by whom he begat the tabernacle of Jesus, as his only begotten in this world," the quote reads.

A copy of the glossy brochure obtained by CNN offers holiday wishes from "the Romney family": "We wish you and your family a happy holiday season and a joyful New Year," it says.

The card focuses on the Republican presidential candidate's home state of Massachusetts, displaying a photo of the Mormon Temple in Boston as well as a snowy photo of the Public Garden in Boston.

The mailing also quotes from the first Book of Nephi, part of the book of Mormon, in which the Virgin Mary is described as "exceedingly fair and white."

I have no intention of voting for Romney, but there are any number of ways to not vote for him-- why fear monger? Why stir a pot of suspicious hatred?

I am all for asking a candidate how their faith will affect their political positions. I would want to know how a devout Catholic feels about Roe v. Wade for example, and if they supported it would they be willing to risk the wrath of their church?

But, I would not assume that a candidate believed X, Y or Z just because> he or she was Catholic.

When JFK ran for office the standard nasty joke/critique is that the White House would move to Rome. It was not an issue of how JFK would handle those areas where public policy and private belief may be at odds -- it was an assumption that because he was Roman Catholic that the Pope pulled his strings. I grew up as a Catholic in an area that was not always kind to Catholics. I got the joke -- it was not an attempt to be amusing, it was an attempt to be scornful, and to strike a note of fear into the voters. Warlord politics. And we have not come so far away.

Look at the excellent column written by our CE, Dana Tuszke She is no more likely to vote for Obama than I am for Romney, but she knows darned well when the spin doctors are lying to us all.

As a Catholic, religion is important to me, and it plays an important role on how I vote in this election -- particularly because of one very important issue dear to my heart.

However, once religion becomes the sole focus of a political campaign, it begins to trample on the rights of others.

There is a huge difference between a candidate whose political actions or zeal are informed by, nourished by, his/her faith, and one who seeks to impose his/her faith on the larger political and national vista. When needing to make that distinction is combined with the need to sort out what is and is not a prejudiced description of a candidate's faith by either the media or the spin doctors --- it troubles the landscape and confuses the voters.

It is time to be alert. Sure, learn about what candidates say about their faith -- but look behind, under and around it as well.

Sort out all the puffery and prejudice going on here -- because too much is at stake to ignore it.

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