Christianity and the US election

Christian groups of all kinds are pushing hard to ensure another term in office for George W Bush. Despite the separation of church and state, American religious groups are using their vast resources to rally their followers to vote for the incumbent.

A group of interfering bishops has effectively told Roman Catholics not to vote for John Kerry, the Democrat nominee in the forthcoming US presidential election. Without naming Kerry -- who is himself a Catholic -- they have declared it is a sin to vote for anyone who backs abortion rights. Any Catholic who does so must go to confession before receiving communion again, they say.

The bishops, who come from Colorado, Missouri and New Jersey, strongly oppose Mr Kerry because of his support for abortion rights, same-sex marriage and stem cell research. With a quarter of the electorate being nominally Catholic, this could represent a significant blow to Mr Kerry.

The Christian Coalition is distributing 30 million voter guides that use conservative catch-phrases such as "unrestricted abortion on demand" and "affirmative action programs that provide preferential treatment" in detailing the positions of the two presidential candidates. The guides will be distributed nationally starting today, handed out in churches, at shopping malls and at other public locations. The coalition has been producing the guides since 1992. Roberta Combs, coalition president, said the guides were an attempt to educate voters and "I don't think the wording is loaded at all."

Meanwhile, powerful, and power-hungry, televangelist the Rev. Jerry Falwell, taking a break from his tour of battleground states, told members of a Central Texas congregation "There’s a revival sweeping our land. Our people are getting saved. They’re getting registered to vote, and they’re voting Christian."

Falwell declared this summer in his weekly newsletter that the only candidate for "conservative people of faith" is President Bush. His political campaigning has prompted complaints from the Campaign Legal Center and Americans United for Separation of Church and State that he improperly engaged in partisan politics, which is not permissible if he wishes to retain charitable status for his ‘mission’.