The Christian Right Cannot Stand Vivek

My wife taught Sociology for decades and sometimes would come home amused at the moral values and attitudes her students revealed. One was from a classroom exercise she did. She would draw three big circles on the black board. She asked students to list in one all the favorable traits a student should have to be likeable, popular and accepted. Another circle was for traits that were less favorable but not deal breakers. A third circle was for taboos, traits the shunned a student to outside accepted circles. Students would enthusiastically make suggestions for the good traits, maybe one or so to the mild less desirable circle. After a while, professor would say, "What about this one? Should it go in circle three?" She would dramatically write the word, "GAY." Most students back then would vote for circle three. Some would say nothing. Of course, today the exercise would go much differently. 

One place the circle exercise would still work is in today's Christian right. A political candidate can have and say all the correct things but there is one trait that will go into circle three. Currently, it is the word, Hindu (Of course, the word "atheist" would work as well). All of this centers on the growing popularity of Republican Presidential candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy. Ramaswamy hits all the right emotional buttons against abortion, gay marriage and antigovernment. But this is all wiped away because he is a practicing Hindu. Paraphrasing one preacher, "This Christian country cannot have a President who prays to some god other than God."

If members of the Christian right followed a rational path in their thinking they would all embrace Ramaswamy. Afterall, they embraced Trump who never said much about his religious beliefs and behaved like someone with no moral standards. If they could endorse Trump with such enthusiasm why would it be a problem if a right-wing politician was a Hindu or for that matter an atheist?

There is no rational way to explain the anti-Hindu political behavior. We can only watch and marvel at how little the Republican right wing resembles the values of the U. S. Leaving religion at the doorstep of the public sector, being blind in race and supporting equal opportunity to women has never been there in the political right and perhaps never will.