Quote:
Originally Posted by mani
In america u get the politicians coming out sayin i'm a god fearing catholic/protestant/mormon etc and they love the Google Page Ranking shots of them coming out of church and love the fact that people of a similar religious banding will vote for them goin as far as saying this was the answer god gave to me
yet in UK aside from a public funeral or christmas you rarely see any political figure talking about their religious choices etc
recently tony blair came out sayin that if people come out if he came out with his religious choices he'd b see as a some sort of loony
so why does it play a major part in american politics and not in british?
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In the US there is a large constituency that actually believes in jesus ... sorry JESUS ... and take the bible literally. And they vote. And they vote in large numbers. And they usually vote right wing. Without them people like Bush and Reagan would not get elected. You can usually identify these people by their bumper stickers, and can find them at WWE events and monster truck races. But the point is that they vote, and any politician ignores them at his peril. On the other hand, there is a large constituency that wants to maintain the separation of church and state. Perhaps fundamentalist christianity is the Great Divide in American politics. For reasons that someone else might want to explain, this extremism in christianity does not seem to have affected the politics of other western nations ... altho' birth control and abortion are still vitally important concerns in countries such as Ireland and Portugal. Perhaps politicians in say, England, and those who vote for them still hold to the idea that a person's religion is his own concern, part of his private life.
It's a complex issue ... but I do think it ironic that many in the US condemn Islamic extremist states while promoting a fundamentalist Christian America. Not that I believe either is right.
(I wonder why Dylan Thoma's "two gunned Gabriel" comes to mind
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