Source: Salon

Although someday I’d like to run for my local school board, I doubt I ever will. The single biggest factor holding me back (in my own mind) is the fact that I’m an outspoken atheist. I’m not only “out of the closet”; I’ve also written quite a lot that can be mined for nuggets to discredit me as a human being. No matter what the Constitution says, there remains a powerful, de facto religious test for public office, and it has bubbled up to the surface this election far worse than usual in the form of breathtaking religious pandering and bigotry. The establishment in both the Republican and Democratic parties, it seems, is hell bent on wringing the last bit of religious exploitation out of an angry, unruly electorate.

The presidential race is overflowing with offensive religious nonsense. Donald Trump is making fumbling overtures to the religious right, and condemning a billion Muslims solely because of their religion. Ted Cruz is playing to the most regressive form of Christianity, all but declaring non-Christians anti-American. Hillary Clinton won’t stop waxing poetic about prayer, and, although an understandable strategy, Bernie Sanders has tied himself into knots to infuse humanism with as much religion as possible. And yet, even the faithful should be offended at the central role religion has taken in this presidential election.

I was motivated to start writing this essay after turning on CNN one morning and being subjected to religious extremist Franklin Graham, who was gravely informing viewers that “only God can save America.” He urged Christians to run for public office, and (coincidentally) for the local school board. He subtly stated that non-Christians are unworthy for public office in this country.

Cable news has a credibility issue even without constantly checking our politics against the wishes of theocrats. This groveling at the feet of the most crooked andwealthy preachers is an ugly American tradition that only highlights our national dysfunction. It is the inverse of the sweet, earnest faith of “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

You might think (as I do) that Graham is nothing more than a grotesque religious crackpot, expressing our most divisive and lowly identity politics, but the actions and words coming from this cycle’s presidential campaigns show just how much religious pandering is tainting our politics.

Let’s start with Donald Trump, a heathen if ever there were one. He’s played the Muslim card, pitting white Americans against a small, powerless minority; at the same time, he’s comically uninformed about the Christian faith he is attempting to manipulate. The only upside is watching Trump look awkward while a bunch of religious nuts pray over him. That one, outlandish moment exposes American Christianity for the postmodern fraud it has become.

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