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Mocking religious extremism in politics

Michele Bachman, Mary Franson, and Paul Gazelka are intolerant anti-democratic religious extremists. Having said that I am wondering if mocking their religious views is the moral and upright thing to do.

Bachman recently took wide spread heat for telling a television commentator that she was going to ask God if she should become a candidate for governor in Minnesota. When she said that, knees set on auto-jerk went into rapid action. Ridicule was heaped on the former Member of Congress and Presidential aspirant.
Bill board in St. Paul erected last weekend
Thanks Twitter

 But was ridiculing Bachman's comment that she was going to pray before reaching a decision becoming of those who would criticize Bachman for her intolerant and authoritarian views? Aren't we bigger than that. Can't we take on Bachman, and other zealots like her, without ridiculing their fundamental religious beliefs? I refuse to laugh at another persons religious beliefs.

My brother-in-law and I were talking about our religious upbringing the other day. It was pretty conservative for both of us. We both came from households where praying for religious guidance in our lives was fairly common place. But prayer was a private matter between the person praying and their god.

"That stuff stays at home or in church," he said. "You don't take that stuff to St. Paul," he said referring to State Senator Paul Gazelka.

That's it!

Bachman has a right to pray for guidance from her deity. But once she announces it on television she's turned er relationship with that deity into politics. She politicized her god. Having put God into play in the field of politics she opened herself up to criticism, even by ridicule.

Religion should not be a political matter in the United States of America. We are a secular nation that accepts all creeds as long as they do not infringe upon the rights of others. Bachman, Franson, and Gazelka use their religion to abridge the freedom of others. Thats politics and they must be stopped; even if we must use ridicule.

We can ridicule a political stance even if it is grounded in a religious belief.


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