Bill Straub: GOP takes playing the time-honored ‘religion card’ down a much darker road

WASHINGTON – As a rule, Republican politicians in Kentucky and elsewhere go to great lengths to convince members of the voting public that they count themselves among those folks who fully and faithfully embrace the Baby Jesus. The fact that these office-seekers always feel closest to the deity, more fervent, around Election Day, when the followers of the Savior head for the polls, is pure coincidence.

Promoting oneself as a good Christian churchgoer wearing a real or imagined WWJD bracelet has long served them well, even though Article VI, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution explicitly bans religious tests for “any office or public trust under the United States.” But functioning as a servant of God, real or imagined, has proved fruitful since the founding of the republic. And if being a psalm singer gets you elected, well, just go with what works.

But playing the religion card has taken a darker turn in recent years as the nation has grown more secular and the pious have gone to greater lengths in supporting those who represent their theological views. Instead of simply offering themselves as GOP office seekers who wear their religion on their sleeves as November approaches, they are attacking their Democratic foes for being insufficiently devout.

In the recent past, at least, attacking a political foe’s religious beliefs has generally been out-of-bounds. But this is 2016, the Era of Trump, and as Cole Porter famously wrote, “God knows, anything goes.’’

Take Gov. Matt Bevin. Please (Hat tip, Henny Youngman). Speaking at a Republican breakfast in Mayfield prior to the annual St. Jerome Fancy Farm Picnic in early August, Mad Matt made it clear that his beloved deity is, indeed a registered Republican who wholeheartedly embraces the party’s endeavors.

Quoted by the always reliable Joe Gerth, political writer for the Courier-Journal, Bevin told the overflow crowd that the upcoming election is about “people who believe in the values and the core Judeo-Christian principles that this nation was built on and the people who don’t.’’

Mad Matt, of course, counts himself among the Judeo-Christian values keepers, which should make others holding such tenets think twice.

But he wasn’t done tossing red meat to the religious right, further proposing that the Democratic Party is not on God’s side, characterizing the party’s platform as “the most godless, lawless, non-constitutional affirming, overreaching regulatory proposal that you’ve ever seen.”

Now, after nine months in office, the citizens of the commonwealth are fairly inured to their governor playing the fool. But he was not alone in his disparagement. Former state Agriculture Commissioner James Comer, the Republican looking to succeed the retiring Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Mayfield, in the 1st Congressional District, went so far as to questioned the faith of those who vote for Democrats.

Gee, what did Democrats do, violate God’s commandments by physically abusing their college girlfriends or something?

Comer is the same guy who, in an unsuccessful campaign for governor in 2015, asserted, “This is Christian nation and a Christian state founded by Christian leaders. We don’t need to apologize to anyone for that.”

So who’s asking for an apology? The only apology necessary, of course, is the intentional misstatement that the United States is a Christian nation and that Kentucky is a Christian state. Otherwise everything’s dandy.

And, God help us, this dude is probably going to win.

This sort of rhetoric has become fashionable in GOP circles. The most notorious example is the never-ending campaign to convince the voting public that President Obama, a self-professed Christian, is actually a Muslin acting surreptitiously to undermine U.S. security.

Claims that Obama practices Islam, circulated to damage his standing with voters, are legion. Antonio Sabato Jr., a two-bit hack actor who appeared on stage during the opening night of the Republican National Convention this year, told ABC News after his speech that Obama is “absolutely” a Muslim.

“I don’t believe the guy is a Christian,” Sabato said. “He has never talked about Jesus Christ once. We had a Muslim president for seven and half years.’’

Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has done little to dismiss the canard. Last September, during a town hall gathering in Rochester, NH, a man wearing a Trump for President t-shirt, rose and told the then GOP primary candidate, “We have a problem in this country. It’s called Muslims. We know our current president is one.”

“Right,” Trump said.

This is the game they’re playing, folks. Trump, meeting with conservative evangelical Christian leaders in New York City in June, openly questioned the religious faith of his Democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton.

“Now, she’s been in the public eye for years and years, and yet there’s no — there’s nothing out there,” Trump said. “There’s like nothing out there. It’s going to be an extension of Obama but it’s going to be worse, because with Obama you had your guard up. With Hillary you don’t, and it’s going to be worse.”

Clinton, for what it’s worth, regularly attended services at Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington DC during her time as First Lady. Trump, a Presbyterian, has described himself as a Christmas-and-Easter church attendee.

But God is all in for Trump. He carries the support of a long line of Christian conservatives and Michelle Bachmann, the dingbat former Republican congresswoman from Minnesota, maintains her reading of the Book of Daniel has convinced her that Trump was “raised up” by God to win the general election.

Appearing on The Brody File, airing on the Christian Broadcasting Network, Bachmann went even further, denigrating the religious values of those working for Clinton.

“If you look at Barack Obama by contrast, if you look at Hillary Clinton by contrast, tell me where the strong people of orthodox Christian faith or orthodox Jewish faith who believe that the Bible is true, who believe that God is who He says who He is,’’ she said.

People like Bevin, Comer and Bachmann present themselves as if Jesus is acting directly through them, that God is personally whispering in their ear, passing on instructions to be carried out in His name. Those offering an un-Comer, un-Bevin, un-Bachmann thought are infidels, ignoring the wisdom of these self-appointed prophets.

This is the lowest of arguments, undeserving to be branded as Christian in any true sense of the word. Comer in particular, is at a loss to understand how a Christian can be a Democrat, ignoring the possibility that maybe, just maybe, they’re simply following what they believe to be the teachings of the Bible, or the Koran for that matter.

Perhaps, since he apparently has a direct pipeline to the Almighty, the Bible should be revised, adding the Book of Comer. It’s just so terribly arrogant, and hypocritical, to insist that your interpretation of Christ’s teachings are superior to those expressed by others. It’s possible to live your faith without attacking the understanding of someone else. Comer, Bevin and others have forsaken that simple lesson.

In an old episode of “All in the Family,’’ Archie Bunker takes great pains to explain God to his son-in-law, Michael Stivic. God, Archie notes, created man in his own image.

“So God looks like you?’’ Stivic asked.

Archie paused. “I ain’t saying you can’t tell the two of us apart,’’ he said.

To too many Republican politicians these days, the answer to Stivic’s question is, “Yes.’’

Jesus wept.

Washington correspondent Bill Straub served 11 years as the Frankfort Bureau chief for The Kentucky Post. He also is the former White House/political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. A member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, he currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, and writes frequently about the federal government and politics. Email him at williamgstraub@gmail.com.