There’s a basic problem in mixing religion with politics, says The Nation’s Katha Pollitt: religious leaders. No matter what brand of faithfulness the heavyweights offer, they are all “out there.”

For years, Democrats have been trying to shed their secular image in order to appeal to voters who think Jesus is a Republican. As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for, because now, thanks to Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., the Democrats have got religion and everything that comes with it—weirdness, wrath, insult, blowhardiness, vanity, paranoia, divisiveness and trouble.

Of course, Wright is not alone.

McCain still welcomes the endorsement of the televangelist John Hagee, who has famously attributed Hurricane Katrina to God’s wrath at homosexuals, calls the Catholic Church “the great whore,” claims the Quran commands Muslims to kill Jews and Christians and condemns the Harry Potter books as witchcraft.

I hope the days of choosing elected officials based on bowling scores or religious zealotry or who you’d rather drink a beer with pass with the Bush administration.

…Wright and Hagee have a lot in common. Both believe that chickens come home to roost—in New Orleans and on Sept. 11, 2001—and that God sends them. Both think America is sinful. Both have bizarre ideas with terrible, real-world implications: Hagee wants the U.S. and Israel to attack Iran; Wright claims the U.S. government invented the HIV virus “as a means of genocide against people of color.”

The fact is, if Wright were a white wing-nut, the news media—and the voters—would give him the pass they give Hagee—and Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and the other radical-right preachers, who say vicious, bigoted, nutty things that violate common sense and common decency all the time.

Religion is inherently irrational. No one can empirically prove that Jesus is the son of God, or that God engraved stone tablets for Moses, or any other tenets of Christianity or Judaism or Islam or you name it. So any argument about public policy that begins with what you believe God wants or God said or God does is invalid.

I sometimes wonder if, after eight years of Bush, we will ever find our way back as a country. We’ve been talked to like adolescents who are being ordered to their rooms for so long that we’ve begun to act like that’s what we are. When Obama or Edwards or Biden any other candidate tries to talk to us like adults, we pout. When they expect us to be reasoned and fair and to eschew quick fixes or hate talk or dumb ideas that we want to hear but that don’t solve problems, we call them names. “Elitist! Intellectual! Snob! You think you’re better than us? Huh? You’re not even wearing our team’s pin on your lapel!”

I saw a political cartoon the other day that showed a man in a voting booth. He was pursing his lip and staring down at his ballot. “Hmmm,” he said. “I don’t know. He bowled a 37.” The caption read, “How America picks the leader of the free world.” I hope not. I hope the days of choosing elected officials based on bowling scores or religious zealotry or who you’d rather drink a beer with pass with the Bush administration. So far, it looks like they might be here to stay.