LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY spainplease)

Amanda at Pandagon made a post about faith and politics that seemed particularly relevant to this community.

For example, this new acceptability of god talk for the Democrats has already resulted in a situation where all the major Democratic candidates were pushed into a situation where they had to give an approving nod to religious bigotry, when Tim Russert asked them to name their favorite Bible verse. It was one of those things packaged like a softball question, like, “What are you reading now?”, but it was actually about as repulsive as it gets, because the unspoken assumption was that non-Christians are simply ineligible to run for President. And even if any of the candidates wanted to challenge that assumption and refuse to answer by pointing out that they’re running to be leader of all Americans, including all non-Christians, they would have been roasted. So they all played along like it was a softball, when in reality it was an assertion of an incredibly bigoted assumption. It’s like asking all the candidates what nickname they have for their penises; the underlying assumption is you have to have one to be President.

I think she's hit the nail on the head. It's an unspoken rule in American politics that government officials have to be Christian; the Annual National Prayer Breakfast and the controversy surrounding Keith Ellison's decision to be sworn in on the Qu'ran are only a couple of examples of this. It's also more evidence that Dominionists have more sway over politics than many people are aware of.