Words are Important or; Why Everyone you Disagree With isn’t a Terrorist

While my next couple posts will focus on the different ways that Muslims have been actively involved in politics both at the state and national level, this week I wanted to comment on a controversial claim that Rick Perry made during the GOP primary debate on Monday night in South Carolina. During the section on foreign policy, Perry was asked the following question:

“Since the Islamist-oriented party took over in Turkey, the murder rate of women has increased 1,400 percent there. Press freedom has declined to the level of Russia. The prime minister of Turkey has embraced Hamas and Turkey has threatened military force against both Israel and Cypress. Given Turkey’s turn, do you believe Turkey still belongs in NATO?”

Perry responded by saying:

“Well, obviously when you have a country that is being ruled by, what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists, when you start seeing that type of activity against their own citizens, then yes. Not only is it time for us to have a conversation about whether or not they belong to be in NATO, but it’s time for the United States, when we look at their foreign aid, to go to zero with it.”

Turkey is run by “Islamic terrorists”, eh? To quote a childhood hero of mine:

To claim even indirectly (which he does here by using the infamous “some would say” card which allows you to place a controversial view out there, use it as a premise in an argument and all the while not explicitly endorse it) that Islamic terrorists rule Turkey is simply baseless and irresponsible. But after you take a step back and pay careful attention of how he words his response what’s going on becomes clearer. This is the key part:

“…what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists…” (emphasis added)

We can’t contest the fact that Perry and others look at, say, the ruling party of Turkey and see “Islamic terrorists” in the same way that we can’t deny the fact that many who look at atheists and see nothing but amoral, potential sociopaths who are one Richard Dawkins book away from seeking a legal ban all religion. They’re, of course wrong, but that does not change the fact that that’s what they see when they look out at the world. This is, of course, in and of itself the issue. When we can no longer tell the difference between the rulers of secular country with a democratically elected government and people who trick children into becoming suicide bombers, we have a problem.

It all comes back to a fundamental truth that politicians on both sides of the aisle should internalize: words are important. Just like when you call someone a “Nazi” or a “fascist”, when say somebody is a “terrorist”, that’s supposed to mean something. These words that describes the darkest parts of civilization are not and should not be used as catchall terms for everything we don’t like. It’s through semantic abuse that terms like terrorist become useless and nothing more than a wide brush used to paint political targets with negative connotations in order to discredit and dehumanize without debate. From what I can tell, this is exactly what Governor Perry was attempting to do here. Riding the high tides of Islamophobia, he wanted to make it look as if he was taking a stand against a common enemy. Either that or he really does believe that terrorists run Turkey. I can’t tell which option is better.

Here’s the worst part of all of this: when it comes to Turkey, there are plenty of things to criticize. There is plenty to take issue with. Turkey’s recent rash of journalist arrests, their use of terrorism laws as a means to squash political protest, and whether or not the government is doing enough to stem the tide of honor killings (warning: pdf) that have been on the rise in the past 10 years are all important issues that need to be addressed. But instead of having a conversation about some worrying recent political and social trends in what is a close ally, we get this…from a man who was at one point seen to be a viable candidate for President of the United States. Hopefully with Perry suspending his presidential campaign today, some of the hyperbolic Islamophobic rhetoric, pandering to the far fringes of the American political spectrum and poor reasoning that has dogged this political cycle will leave with him.

But who am I kidding? It’s only January. We’ll be lucky if we get to next week without something equally as absurd being said. ‘Tis the season after all.

Adam Garner is a senior at the University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign studying philosophy and religion with a focus on epistemology, applied ethics, and British Empiricism. He is the Vice-President of Campus Outreach for the UIUC group Interfaith in Action, a Better Together Coach for the Interfaith Youth Core’s 2012 Better Together Campaign, and is the head of the Education Committee for the Illinois Interfaith Service Challenge. Raised Mormon, Adam is now an atheist that has one goal in life: to leave the world a little bit better than he found it through the power of rational discourse and interfaith cooperation. When not interfaithing or philosophizing, he enjoys watching cat videos on the internet, finding new Sci-fi shows to become addicted to, and teaching other people how to do handstands

Wearing the Bible Belt

Louis C.K.’s fictionally autobiographical series Louie once ran an episode where, on a trip to Birmingham for a stand-up gig, he discovers that, despite believing that “everyone’s basically the same no matter where you go”, the South is an altogether different culture. I almost wish he’d stayed down for longer than the one (albeit, again, fictional) night he spent there, to experience what face a political campaign takes in a region where hecklers demand that you “say some shit about Mobile”.

Unfortunately, you don’t have to go as far below the Mason-Dixon line as Alabama to find stereotype-fulfilling homophobia and isolationism. Although I go to school in Massachusetts, I remain a registered voter in my home state of North Carolina for a number of reasons– primarily among them coming this May, where we’ll be voting whether to amend the state constitution to only recognize marriage between “one man and one woman”. While back home last summer, myself and a handful of others counterprotested an appallingly popular rally in support of the amendment in Raleigh. Here’s a couple of pictures characterizing the event:

Protestor at the Marriage Rally with a particularly boring sign; he was especially keen on harassing the counterprotestors, questioning them about whether they "knew Jesus"

Counterprotestor at the Marriage Rally with a particularly awesome sign; the progressive insurgency in the South certainly has the higher ground on humor

So you can imagine being a religious minority in such a climate is rough enough, let alone attempting a bid for office. But, dear reader, candidates of that sort do exist down under: Cecil Bothwell, currently an Asheville City Councillor, now running for the NC11 House seat, is a member of the Unitarian Universalist church, and a self-identified atheist. Also quite the beat poet.

That last bit is pretty telling, though– Asheville isn’t exactly your typical what-kind-of-crops-does-your-family-grow Southern commune. It’s more of, to borrow a sentiment from Patton Oswalt about places like Portland, OR and Austin, TX, the state’s isolated “bubble of sanity”, where the “streets are paved with marijuana” and you can “elect a hacky sack mayor”. Yet Asheville, wonderfully weird as it is, still generally espouses a peculiar non-progressivism. A coalition of local conservatives, along with their sympathizers across NC, challenged the legitimacy of Bothwell’s initial bid for City Council on the grounds that the North Carolina state constitution, in print, requires a belief in God to hold office. Naturally, thanks to progressive activists, the Fourteenth Amendment, and sanity, this was ruled as bullshit.

And now, Bothwell has set his sights on challenging incumbent Heath Shuler (a Blue Dog Democrat and former NFL Quarterback– again, in Asheville, where lawmaking may well be done via fingerpainting, exists an entirely wacky universe that still somehow upholds Southern conservatism). Sentiment expressed by local bloggers and columnists looks positive towards Bothwell, but not until later this year will we really see how contentious the race will be.

Bothwell’s plight offers a fairly, I think, accurate portrayal of what it’s like to be a religious minority–or almost any minority, for that matter–candidate down South. I’m still hunting for other examples outside of my home state– part of the difficultly in tracking down religiously eclectic political hopefuls, particularly with nontheists, is that they just avoid the subject of religion altogether.

But that’s the South. Not entirely conquered by conservatism and traditionalism, but enough so that it is pretty damn politically nonviable–or, certainly, a struggle–to out yourself as belonging to a religious group that doesn’t already have five churches throughout your district. For the next year, when I’m not following specific politicians with nontraditional religious views, I’ll also tackle issues wherein certain minority religious groups have been discounted or discriminated against by politicians to help their election bids (as done by current Senator Kay Hagan in the last cycle).

Don’t let the hot climate fool you–politics in the South can be awfully cold. So let us go then, you and I, and see what they hold for those in the religious 99%…er, rather, the less than 50%.

Walker Bristol grew up in southeastern North Carolina, in a town somewhat known for being the principal filming location of Dawson’s Creek (his parents, and reality, insist that his brother Dawson was born and named prior to the show’s pilot). He escaped to Boston when he was 17, and now serves Italian food and studies religion and linguistics at Tufts University. He wrestled in high school, but now mostly ballroom dances and jams on the piano with the rest of the Tufts Freethought Society. For the first decade of his life, Walker believed “incorrectly” that he was living in the Star Wars universe. Having never been to space, he remains agnostic on that question.

I Can See The Mountaintop: It’s in Provo

Today, Jon Huntsman has said he will formally withdraw from the presidential race after finishing third in the New Hampshire primary behind Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. CNN reported that Huntsman will endorse Romney, his distant cousin and fellow Mormon. Throughout his campaign, Huntsman tended to distance himself from his Mormon faith, saying in an interview with Fortune that he wasn’t “overly religious.” By contrast, Romney has and continues to be an active member of the LDS. He served as a bishop in the Belmont, Massachusetts ward and as President of the Boston stake. In LDS-speak, this means he was a volunteer lay minister in Belmont and leader of several wards around Boston. Today, he regularly attends church services. This may help explain why Mormon voters tended to favor Romney over Huntsman.

The upcoming primary in South Carolina may very well determine the Republican candidate for President. As a state with a conservative reputation, (I’m thinking John C. Calhoun conservative, who looks eerily like a muppet) many have speculated that Romney’s Mormon faith is likely to affect voters’ decisions. Indeed, the recent decision by a coalition of Christian leaders to support Santorum could sway some evangelical voters. However, despite its reputation, South Carolina is experiencing increasing religious diversity which could better the odds for Romney. At any rate, a win for Romney in South Carolina puts him one step closer to being the first Mormon President of the United States. On this Martin Luther King Day, I hope that we can celebrate diversity and not judge a candidate whose church before 1978 would not let our current President hold the priesthood(3:05).

The Resemblance is Striking

Who cares about religious minority candidates?

Short answer: I do, and I think maybe you should too!

Hi and welcome back to Unelectables! I’m super pumped and grateful at the opportunity to join my friend Chelsea and our other awesome collaborators here to talk about the roles and fates of religious minorities in the 2012 elections. With this campaign season really just starting to heat up, I think I can afford to take a few minutes and devote my first post to a Big Question: just why do we care whether religious minorities (that is, people who aren’t mainstream Christians) get elected to public office? To some of us it seems pretty much self-evident that candidates’ electability should have very little to do with their religious affiliations. But let’s just say that others may disagree. I know this post won’t resolve that disagreement, but it should at least let you know just where I’m coming from when I write about religious minorities in politics. It should also lay the groundwork for my future discussions of the legal challenges, policy considerations, and electoral dynamics at the riotous intersection of faith and American politics.

To date, most of my thinking on electability has focused on racial minority candidates (with Matthew Platt‘s guidance, I wrote my undergrad thesis on racialized campaign messaging and legislative activity among black House members). This post will lean heavily on ideas from that branch of political science scholarship. A lot of the minority representation literature talks about “descriptive representation,” where a group defined by some characteristic (e.g. transgender identity, Korean ancestry, Team Jacob tattoos) is represented in the public decision-making process by someone who shares that characteristic. The benefits of this type of arrangement can generally be divided into two categories: policy benefits and non-policy benefits.

Let’s start with the policy benefits of descriptive representation. The idea that you can make good legislative or executive decisions for an identity group if you’re a member of that group makes some intuitive sense…but, perhaps unsurprisingly, applying that idea to any particular group quickly gets tricky. First, it can be hard to define what’s in a group’s interest: does it make sense to try and determine Exactly What’s Good For Black People or Exactly What’s Good For Women? Certainly not in an exclusive sense, because both those categories include very diverse people. Indeed, even those of us who like to think of ourselves as crazy-progressive, it can take a lot of careful attention to think about women’s policy interests or black policy interests without relying on a reductive notion of what it means to be a black person or a woman. It’s not impossible to come up with a rationale for unified group interests; for example, I think Tommie Shelby‘s done a terrific job of laying out why it might be in most any black American politician’s rational self-interest to try and address the lingering effects of historical injustices that harm some black people (even if the politicians in question have in large part managed to transcend those effects themselves) instead of focusing solely on continued institutional racism. But, clearly, it can be tough to define group interests in every case. And if you can get a good sense of what’s good for ____ people, then do you have to have a ____ person in office to put those ideas into practice? I wouldn’t necessarily assume so, at least not in every case. I would say that if you have a group with fairly well-defined interests, then it seems like a representative member of that group is as good a person as any to give voice to those interests, since that member can use their own self-interest as a guide.

To bring it back to our particular brand of unelectables, those in the religious minority: Identifying the policy benefits for non-mainstream-Christian citizens of electing non-mainstream-Christian officials seems like it should be relatively easy. If the defining characteristic of an identity group is a set of ideas about history and morality, you’d think it’d be pretty easy to work out that group’s policy preferences. Of course it’s not that simple; not every religious text takes a crystal-clear stance on the constitutionality of Obamacare’s individual mandate. And even on issues that have come to be defined in large part by the religion-intensive debates around them, two practitioners of the same faith won’t always come to the same conclusion. There is something to be said for the idea that a member of a religious minority might have a bit of extra incentive to defend what he or she sees as free practice and freedom from establishment of religion, but beyond that it’s hard to generalize too much.

So maybe it’d be a good idea to move on to a discussion of the non-policy benefits of having religious minority officials around. Aside from having someone who generally agrees with you calling the shots, why might you want somebody who believes or unbelieves what you believe or unbelieve in office? To some extent, it depends on the societal status of your religious or non-religious group. In general, it seems like having a government whose demographic makeup roughly matches that of the governed is a good sign that the electoral system is functioning properly; if certain significant groups of people are dramatically underrepresented in the ranks of the ruling class, it suggests pretty strongly that the group’s political opportunities and/or aspirations are somehow systematically limited. That can create or intensify social resentment and political withdrawal among members of the underrepresented group. Descriptive representation, on the other hand, helps combat that alienation; it’s been shown to promote feelings of political efficacy and satisfaction with policy outcomes, motivate people to get informed about their representatives, and even increase voter turnout.

Although the effect undoubtedly varies for members of different groups, there are certainly religious minority citizens who could benefit from a boost in feelings of political security. I don’t think it’s too much of an exaggeration for Chelsea to describe atheist politicians as practically “unelectable” considering the representation gap at the federal level: the roughly 6% of Americans who believe that there is no God or other universal higher power are represented by about 0.002% of Congress (his name is Pete Stark). And then there are American Muslims, who get slightly better representation (two MCs!) but also have to put up with rampant distrust from such diverse parties as presidential hopefuls, home improvement empires and, well, about half of everybody else. I for one would be very happy to see the political fortunes of Muslim candidates and other religious minorities match the majority’s a little more closely.

So. There’s a not-so-brief outline of what all I’m doing here. I recognize that it’s by no means a complete account of the benefits of religious minority politics, but if you think I’ve made any particularly egregious omissions or errors, please please comment away! If you’ve made it this far, Happy MLK Day, and see you next time.

[Housekeeping: In my dreams I blog like a cross between Nate Silver (with fewer numbers) and Ari Ezra Waldman (with fewer law degrees), plus a bit of Ryan North thrown in for color. But my blog muscles are a little rusty (see? that chatty little metaphor was all kinds of mixed). It's been a while since my LiveJournal days, after all, and most of that while has found me writing college papers or reading legal memos. So I hope you'll bear with me (and let me know in the comments!) if I get too wonky or otherwise underentertaining every once in a while. In the meantime, I'm just looking forward to spending from now till November in fun and exciting conversations with my collaborators and, if I'm lucky, even a few readers.]

Sean Cuddihy is a real estate practice assistant living in Washington, DC. He spends his days helping attorneys help companies manage their affordable housing investments, and his nights mentally preparing himself to apply to law school (a.k.a. watching Netflix with his partner) or exploring his new city (a.k.a. trying to figure out where to buy a grocery cart). Before that, he was a student at Harvard College, where he wrote a thesis on race in Congressional campaign advertising, argued with fellow members of The Crimson’s editorial board, and played baritone horn with his friends in the (undefeated!) Harvard University Band. Before that, he was an Eagle Scout from a big public high school in Orlando, and in some ways he probably always will be.

Newsreel 01/14

In the news this week…

• NPR published a story of two Mormon missionaries in New Hampshire and reported that the two young men were repeatedly asked one question, “Huntsman or Romney?” Which I found strange, because I was under the impression that most encounters with Mormon missionaries went like this. All shameless Broadway references aside, whether Huntsman and Romney’s participation in the Republican primary will bring understanding and positive attention to the historically ridiculed Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints remains to be seen. Perhaps, as the musical The Book of Mormon claims, “tomorrow is a doper, phatter latter day” for religious tolerance, at least.
• In a federal appeals court this past Tuesday, an Oklahoma measure banning the consideration of Sharia law in state judge’s decisions has been blocked. Muneer Awad, the leader of the Council of American-Islamic Relations who brought the suit said, “This is an important reminder that the Constitution is the last line of defense against a rising tide of anti-Muslim bigotry in our society, and we are pleased that the appeals court recognized that fact.” Read the full story here.
• This week, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life published a massive report entitled Mormons In America which included numerous polls of Mormons about theology, values, and their thoughts on the perception of their religion by non-Mormons. One result that may help clarify some of the misconceptions is this: only 2% of Mormons polled said that polygamy was morally acceptable. Keep in mind that a recent poll found that 2% of Americans think that Mitt Romney’s real first name is “Mittens.” Another 2% think his real name is “Gromit.” Should we really judge all Americans for the shortcomings of this unrepresentative minority? If not, then let’s drop the whole polygamy thing.
• The New York Times reported that Evangelical leaders in the U.S. still seem hesitant to support current Republican primary front-runner Mitt Romney and instead hope that the upcoming primary results will provide a viable alternative to rally around. Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Rick Perry are each courting this constituency by attempting to out-Christian each other.
• Stephen Colbert has purchased airtime for a campaign ad to be run in South Carolina supporting his bid for the presidency. In response I must say that I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m an atheist, but you don’t have to watch the Colbert Report every night to know that there’s something wrong in our country when a comedian can openly be the most qualified candidate for president, IMHO (and that of Jesus Christ). Read the humorous coverage here.

Mormons, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying about Polygamy Because it’s Seriously not an Issue

Why should I, a lifelong atheist, care so much about Mormons? Perhaps it’s because we’re both on the spectrum of being unelectable, though we atheists face a bit more bias, statistically speaking, in the political realm. Indeed, 25% of Americans would be less likely to support a Mormon presidential candidate than a non-Mormon whereas a whopping 61% would be less likely to support an atheist candidate than a candidate who believes in God.[1] Further, atheists and Mormons are both greatly misrepresented in the media. Mormons are often accused of being polygamous (which the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, henceforth LDS because that’s a mouthful, hasn’t officially been since 1890)[2], of not being Christian (one third of Americans and half of white evangelical Protestants believe that the LDS is not a Christian religion), and of being generally different (two thirds of Americans believe that Mormonism is “very different” from their own beliefs)[3]. We atheists are typically demonized for all sorts of reasons, but thank Satan we aren’t accused of being polygamous! That would be too much for my monogamous, albeit godless, heart to bear.

This misunderstanding and subsequent bias against Mormons comes to fruition in the discourses surrounding Mormon candidates for President, specifically Mitt Romney. As my fellow blogger Chelsea posted in the newsreel on Saturday, Georgia state representative Judy Manning said that, “I think Mitt Romney is a nice man, but I’m afraid of his Mormon faith …If the Mormon faith adhered to a past philosophy of pluralism, multi-wives, that doesn’t follow the Christian faith of one man and one woman, and that concerns me.”[4] Now, this quotation may seem awful, bigoted, misguided, and repugnant to an interfaith agenda, but we must remember that Representative Manning generously noted that Romney is indeed, “better than a Muslim.” So, on the spectrum of unelectability, we have (in order of rising ungodliness): Mormons, atheists, Muslims. Excellent! Full disclosure: I’m not exactly sure how these groups stack up next to each other, because Muslims haven’t made it on to the surveys I’ve looked at yet. Apparently, they’re such a lost cause they can’t even be thought of as Presidential contenders. Hence, I place them last.

This past Tuesday in Iowa, there was a media frenzy about which candidate would successfully court the evangelical vote, as if they all spoke to each other and voted en masse, like the Catholics were purported to do with Kennedy’s election (who, it was later confirmed, was in fact taking direct orders from the Pope via Twitter throughout his Presidency). However, in general voters who identified themselves as Evangelicals or born again Christians were more likely to support Santorum (a self-proclaimed “Jesus candidate”)[5] than Romney. Even though Romney narrowly won the Caucus with 25% of the vote, he only garnered 14% of the coveted evangelical vote where Santorum received 32%. Even though Romney narrowly won the Caucus with 25% of the vote, he only garnered 14% of the coveted evangelical vote where Santorum received 32%.[6]

Santorum seems to understand this anti-Mormon bias and, purposely or not, has been comparing same-sex marriage to polygamy.[7] This comparison in political discourse is not only offensive but also can only serve to hurt Romney, who 60% of Evangelical Republicans  know is of the Mormon faith[8] which is consistently and erroneously associated with polygamous marriages. It is my sincere hope that through this election cycle, Mormons will gain more acceptance and above all understanding in the public sphere. Everyone must call for tolerance and judgment based on policy and character, not faith, lest we risk perpetuating the hateful discrimination against all religious minorities in an age where the alleged dominant ideology is diversity and acceptance.

Chelsey Faloona is a junior at The George Washington University in D.C. majoring in American Studies. This summer, she received a grant to do archival research at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, where she was consistently asked where her husband and children were, to which she had to respond with the sad news that she hadn’t any. Her current research interests include the intersections of race and gender in the United States as well as the Prison Industrial Complex. When asked about her political views, Chelsey claims to be a Marxist Feminist. When people who haven’t at that point run away screaming ask what she will do with her life, Chelsey explains that she wants to hide in academia forever. In her free time, Chelsey enjoys waiting for the Revolution, arguing about proper nomenclature with her fellow blogger Chelsea (sp?) Link, and (poorly) playing basketball with her younger brother.

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[1] http://www.people-press.org/2011/06/02/republican-candidates-stir-little-enthusiasm/

[2] Arrington, L.J., & Bitton, D. The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-day Saints. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1979, 199.

[3] http://www.pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/Romneys-Mormon-Faith-Likely-a-Factor-in-Primaries-Not-in-a-General-Election.aspx

[4] http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/01/05/398857/georgia-state-repafraid-mormon/

[5] http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/01/rick-santorum-we-always-need-a-jesus-candidate/

[6] http://www.pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/Religion-and-the-2012-Iowa-Republican-Caucuses.aspx

[7] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/rick-santorum-compares-same-sex-marriage-to-polygamy-in-spirited-exchange-at-nh-college/2012/01/05/gIQAdEwXdP_blog.html?tid=sm_facebook_postpolitics

[8] http://pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/Romneys-Mormon-Faith-Likely-a-Factor-in-Primaries-Not-in-a-General-Election.aspx

Newsreel 01/07

In the news this week…

• The big news item of the week is, of course, the Iowa Caucus, where Romney squeezed out Santorum (I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist) by just eight votes.
• …Or did he? Some statisticians have rightly pointed out that eight votes is well within the margin of error for an election of this magnitude, especially one counted by hand, so it would probably be more accurate to say that Romney and Santorum tied.
• After finishing in sixth place, Michele Bachmann dropped out. Jena McGregor writes, for the Washington Post On Leadership blog, that Iowa Republicans weren’t ready to elect a woman, so “it was Rick Santorum who walked away with the evangelical vote.”
• Ralph Reed at CNN’s Belief Blog disagrees, arguing that “Iowa caucus results puncture myth of ‘evangelical vote,’” revealing evangelical voters to be more complex, sophisticated, and diverse than they’ve been made out to be – and therefore, perhaps, less influential of a voting bloc.
• Despite his (sort of) win in Iowa, Romney still faces anti-Mormon rhetoric from within his party. Judy Manning, a Republican George State Representative, said outright this week that although Romney is “a nice man,” she is “afraid of his Mormon faith” – but, of course, “It’s better than a Muslim.” In the same article, she is also quoted using the word “pluralism” to mean “polygamy.” It’s definitely worth a read for that gem alone.
• In another article, Georgia’s crazy-lady-in-residence also claimed (incorrectly) that Mitt Romney had performed over a hundred same-sex marriages while governing Massachusetts.
• Speaking of polygamy and sex-sex marriages, Rick Santorum can’t tell the difference and thinks both are terrible.
• During a radio interview with Santorum, the interviewer commented that “we don’t need a Jesus candidate; we need an economic candidate.” Santorum responded defiantly, “We always need a Jesus candidate.“
• And the Jesus candidate we need is, of course, Rick Santorum – who, as Dean Obeidallah compellingly argues in a CNN opinion piece, essentially wants to impose a Judeo-Christian version of Sharia law. Oh, the irony.
• And speaking of irony, we’ll wrap up with this piece of candy: a Florida Republican man recently ran for his local Republican Party Executive Committee and was shut out for being Muslim and, therefore, a terrorist.

Did you spot a story we missed? Share it in the comments!