Being a Christian is an unspoken rule, if you’re going to run for President of the United States of America. Any deviation from this, or even a suspicion of deviation, and all hell breaks loose (pardon the pun). But why? What makes Candidate Christian better than Candidate Other? What makes the one more qualified to be President than the other? Why do we consistently confuse religious values with American values. Because prejudice is in our DNA, and so is hypocrisy. It’s the reason a candidate like Bernie Sanders will have a fight because he doesn’t have any particular religious affiliation (an excellent quality, if you ask me); it’s the reason Hillary Clinton feels compelled to declare over and over again that she was raised a Methodist, and got her values from that type of upbringing. It’s the reason Barack Obama was almost nailed to the cross over the perception that he was Muslim. And it’s the reason Donald Trump is still in the race. It’s the pervasive trust/fear factor that is infused into not just elections, but everyday life. And everyday people, who live everyday lives, vote.
In America, land of the free and home of the brave; gold standard for democracy, free speech, religious freedom, and all manner of human rights (well, at least on paper it is), there is this little problem. The people. Ahh the people. We are a whole other story. Steeped in our rich tradition of contempt for diversity, a segregationist paradigm has shifted somewhat, morphed into a broader, more contemporary, yet covert version of itself – religious segregation. Because, oh I don’t know, maybe it’s more palatable these days to condemn people who don’t believe like we do than it is to condemn people who don’t look like we do. Maybe it makes us a little deeper, as in don’t judge a book by its cover (that is, color). But who knew? I suppose your religion (or lack thereof) says a lot more about you than your skin, so there.
Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I long to live in a country where people will not be judged by the color of their skin, or their religious affiliations, or their sexual orientation, or their financial status, or their political affiliation, or any of the million things that define us as individuals or groups, but by the content of their character. Waaaay in the recesses of my mind.