Nice Double Standard You Got There

When it comes to religion and politics, there’s a massive double standard and I’m finding it increasingly frustrating. The moment someone on the Left questions how a politician or judge’s arch-conservative religious views may inform their decision-making and policy, the Right becomes apoplectic. But then these same people turn around and disparage or flat-out deny the religious faith of Christian politicians on the left.

See, for instance, the contrast between conservatives’ ire that anyone asked questions about Amy Coney Barrett’s membership in a covenanted religious community, and conservatives’ insistent and ongoing attacks on Georgia Democratic Senate candidate Reverend Raphael Warnock’s faith:

Remember when Republicans created a whole news cycle of outrage by claiming the Dems were being bigoted towards Amy Coney Barrett’s Catholic faith? https://t.co/ElPtDFUD32

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) November 29, 2020

Remember when Trump expressed bafflement that most Jewish people in the U.S. vote Democratic, and seemed almost to suggest that he’s more Jewish than most American Jews? That was policing Jewish people’s faith, too.

It’s not that conservatives actually object to questioning politicians’ faith or asking about the implications of their religious beliefs, or the effect they will have on their decision-making. It’s that conservatives believe they own religion. But they don’t. They simply, honestly, don’t. There are people of faith on both sides.

I’m tired of the double standard conservatives’ constantly apply. Either politicians religious beliefs are available for criticism, or they are not to be touched. You can’t claim both at the same time, and apply the one to conservatives and the other to liberals. Or at least, you can’t do that and be consistent. 

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