I don’t deny that it is happening. I just think the response is to fight the political battles without denigrating the religion.
Maybe you don’t read about the other people with religious beliefs who are in power (specifically don’t read about their religious beliefs) because they separate their beliefs from their politics. Almost all members of Congress claim some religious affiliation.
Some version of survivor bias.
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Agree that many congressmembers are religious without letting it infect their politics. That should be the expectation, but it’s becoming clear that, at least in the Republican party, that pandering to extremists of all sorts is advantageous. The religious aspect is very worrisome imo. It goes against one of the core principles of our democracy.
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I agree that would be ideal, but I think it’s hard to do when the people you criticize are the ones conflating the two.
I think it’s a bit more complicated than that.
There are a set of rules about behavior that are supposed to be obvious without articles of faith, at least traditionally. This is sometimes called natural law. For example, killing people within society under most circumstances is wrong.
However, religious people tend to see that natural law through a religious lens too. For a christian, say, killing is wrong because it violates god’s law. It doesn’t make sense to separate religion from politics in this sense.
There are also articles of faith. These are supposed to be separate from politics. This is partially because combining faith with politics often becomes deadly, as europe learned after the reformation.
But it’s also because faith has to be able to criticize politics. It stops being able to do that when it becomes partisan, which is another way of saying it puts the political power of a party above the need to criticize the exercise of power. This corrupts the faith.
For example, i’m not as troubled by catholic bishops speaking out against laws allowing abortion (although i disagree with them.) But when they seem to target only democratic politicians for their stances in abortion, while not criticizing republicans for their various egregious sins (as defined by the roman catholic church) it starts to feel partisan.
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Here’s a good article from FiveThirtyEight well worth the read.
How Much Power Do Christians Really Have? | FiveThirtyEight
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ETA: I have not confirmed that statement by Pelosi at that time. My recollection is that the attack was widely condemned.
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Are people saying that crap about Paul Pelosi?
Where have you been?
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Yes. Our disingenuous one.
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If it’s not getting posted about on GoA or written up in The Economist there’s a very good chance I’ll miss it.
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Yes. They are saying all that stupid stuff and more. You could just Google it if you actually want to know.
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That isn’t something I’d just Google out of thin air. Not being extremely connected to everything everyone says has its advantages, and I prefer them.
So, I’ll google, “Paul Pelosi and lover” …
OK, here seems to be a summary of things said, with links, but it is more an opinion piece on the leaning-in nature of the GOP, learning their lesson from the Mark Foley incident that cost them in power.