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[Craig234]

11. My view on candidates and religion

1. The leading danger with religion is tribalism. The asking for votes because you're 'one of us' and the demonizing of the opponent as 'not one of us'.

Do you really think Sunnis and Shias are at that much of odds because of some religious difference over a relationship hundreds of years ago? Tribalism is behind the conflict.

When England had civil war after civil war with the Catholics and Protestants each trying to get power and ripe out the other, was it about the religious differences? Of course not. It was tribalism.

There's a natural pressure for people to group for their group's benefit at the expense of others; it's why our principles have a lot of 'one for all, all for one' type messages "liberty, and justice, for all".

2. The personal side of religion is not a campaign issue, and should be left out, just as the founding fathers said there will be no religious test for office.

However, there can be more to religion. Candidates can be affected on morality and policy in ways that will affect the public, and that is a campaign issue.

The problem is, our society appears unable to have a responsible discussion about it. "President Obama, how do you reconcile your church's opposition to capital punishment with your support for it" isn't what's asked. "Are you a Muslim" is.

3. In theory, a church's doctrines can be relevant - but in practice they rarely are. If there was a church that called for something outrageous, it'd be appropriate to ask a candidate in it their position.

Come to think of it, there is one example - evangelical candidates and the fundamentalist efforts to pass 'kill the gays' in Uganda.

4. The issue is when religion is simply used as an attack - appealing to the tribalism mentioned before. Trying to use it as a smear, making baseless insinuations not about policy but appealing to voter prejudice for political benefit.

It's not that hard to say this is wrong and that is right on the issue, but it gets harder when we look at how the issue can really come into play.

When John Kennedy ran, there was a lot of anti-Catholic bigotry - but there was also a lot of opposition to the bigotry.

The Kennedy campaign decided to do a dirty trick. They created phony mailers attacking Catholics and Kennedy, and mailed them to Catholic households, to get those voters to be offended and support Kennedy.

One argument for that is, 'why should only the bigots help the other side, and we don't counter that by getting out more votes on our side?'

Then, if I asked, if the election of Kennedy depended on the dirty trick, with all the harm Nixon would do, then is it ok? It gets harder, weighing one wrong versus harm. Nixon's harms could easily have gone as far as nuclear war, which Kennedy narrowly avoided.

There isn't a great policy to address this. It comes down to hoping not too many voters vote badly over the topic. That the appeals on principle do better than the appeals to tribalism - though the evidence seems to suggest tribalism does well.