Our Evangelical Problem

 Mike Pence

Many have wondered how evangelical Christians could vote for Donal Trump. After all, they have spent years preaching to us that moral character was the most important factor in choosinga political candidate.  While preachers, priests, and bishops have, in defiance of the law, used their pulpits to convince congregations to vote either for a candidate or against a candidate, they  always argued that their candidate possessed a higher moral character.

And then this year, Donald Trump comes along, flaunting his lack of moral character.

One would have expected the Evangelicals would have been outraged at his past behavior and his current rhetoric. But, then an election occurred and according to the exit polls, the Evangelicals voted in greater numbers for Trump than they did Mitt Romney, John McCain, or George Bush. (They are a minority of 28% within the minority party, but they posesses disproportinate power because the GOP needs them to win.)

So what happened? How did they manage to ignore  Trump's many lies, his sexual ethics, his lack of interest in religion, his attitude toward women, his assault on the Eight Beatitudes, and his attacks on a religious minority? Apparently, they weren't really serious about about moral character; they were only interested in a few issues: criminalizing abortion, restricting LGBT rights, and reversing access to gay marriage. If Lucifer himself promised to promote their pet issues, they would have voted for him.

Technically, they should not care about any of these issues. No one is forcing them to have an abortion, no one is forcing them to have dinner with a transgender, no one is forcing them to marry a member of their own sex.

What it's all about is that evangelical Christians want to impose their beliefs on the rest of country. They want their religious beliefs and moral code to become the law of the land.

Fortunately, our Founding Fathers foresaw such a danger. Thus, in their wisdom, they gave us the First Amendment which, as Thomas Jefferson pointed out, builds a wall between church and state. And, of course, they seem to have conveniently forgotten that George Washington wrote: "The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."

This obsession with imposing their religion and moral code on the rest of us is extremely dangerous in a constitutional democracy. Just as they fear a government based on Sharia Law, others rightfully fear a government based on the beliefs of the evangelicals.

In the 2016 Presidential election, a man of dubious Christian pedigree changes his mind on abortion and says all the things the Evangelicals want to hear. Then he chooses Mike Pence, the poster boy for the Evangelicals, as a running mate, and they flock to the Trump tent.

Of course, it is quite possible that a politician sincerely can change his mind on an issue, but Mr. Trump's change seems to be pandering, and it apparently worked. And now he is obligated to fulfill his promise to the people who want to break down the wall between Church and State. (Most recently, Mr. Trump has backtracked on the gay marriage issue.)

The hope for our nation is that our judiciary has the integrity to prevent one religious group from imposing their beliefs on the rest of their fellow citizens.