The Media's Role in Elevating Religion

Honestly, the media must accept much of the blame for elevating religion beyond its appropriate role in a campaign. Many in the media adopted the term “values voters,” an inaccurate frame promoted by conservative evangelical Christians. But such language ignores the fact that all Americans vote their values, whether those values have religious underpinnings or not. Instead of asking candidates to name their favorite Bible verse, the media’s primary responsibility should be questioning the candidates’ commitment to the First Amendment’s guarantees of religious freedom. Nonreligious voters are as entitled to representation from their elected officials as people of faith are.

As this somewhat wild campaign season continues, for the good of all Americans, I urge all of us to give up our obsession with a candidate’s religiosity and focus on what is really important: a candidate’s record on and promise of support for the Constitution.