Even before Tim Egan posted his New York Times op piece, “How to Break the Republican Lock on God”, I was stewing.
That he capitalized “god” irritated me further.
I’m not interested in Pete Buttigieg’s and Stacy Abrams’ dissertations on their Christianity versus GOP Christianity and hypocrisy. In fact, any politician who decides to lug his or her beliefs into show and tell — the “what god means to me” school presentation — gets a minus on my personal candidate rating system.
Absent other minuses, I won’t decide not to vote for these people; I’m not a one-issue voter. I am a multi-issue voter. I am capable of holding a bunch of ideas about government in my head all at the same time. Religion isn’t one of those ideas.
What I want to hear from presidential candidates is their belief not in the meaning of god, but in the meaning of democratic government.
I want to hear their ideas for making our government and its crucial agencies better and stronger — especially after the gross and perverse assault upon them now. I want to hear about civil rights and human rights, their national and international policy convictions, not their convictions about mythological characters.
I want to hear from them exegeses not on the bible but on the Constitution.
In short, I do not want to hear about anyone’s notion of god and meaning. Not on the campaign trail, not anywhere near my government.
Not.