Ricardo Ojeda ENGLISH 1A Scott, Hoshida

Although people all over the world of many cultures and races practice religion in many different types of ways. Most religions have something in common either its a god or a saint, which they pray and celebrate in times of needs and happiness. Religion has been kept separated from politics for many years for so many different reasons. Religions for example has rejected abortions and gay marriage. On the other hand politics allows abortions to be done to those who did not expected to have a child and it also allows gay marriage to those who love someone of the same sex. Politicians have been taking advantage of religious beliefs to gain electoral votes and to create new laws. What they do is find a connection between their law and religion, which it will get those who have or practice a religion. Religion can thus be a viable instrument to legitimatize or illegitimatize political regimes. According to the author of Politics For God by Hakeem Onapajo This occurs mostly in a country where it is legitimate to invoke religion in politics discourses, and where there is diversity in the religious population of a particular country (PG2). Therefore government should ban the use of religious rhetoric in political campaigns. Political campaigns are not the place for religious rhetoric. A political campaign is a politicians sales pitch to gain votes based on what he or she can promise constitutes. A politicians campaign should contain a summary of what he or she has accomplished, how they have voted, the issues they favor, the issues they oppose, and the issues they

intend to address if elected. Therefore Religious rhetoric has no bearing on a candidates ability to perform his or her service if elected. In addition Presidential candidates uses religion to gain votes among evangelicals. According to Mitchell Landsberg A vast effort has gone into selling Romney to conservative evangelicals, led in part by Marx and his boss.. as it shows Romneys goal was to target those evangelicals that where against abortion and gay marriage. The Faith and Freedom Coalition has set an ambitious goal of reaching out to 17.1 million evangelical households in 12 battleground states to push them to vote. The ambition to get those evangelicals to vote was so big the group was trying to contact each household seven to twelve times using a variety of techniques including phone calls, direct mail, text messaging, voter guides in churches, and personal visits by volunteers. Moreover according to the LA times these groups Focused on the Familys political wing, Citizen Link, in cooperation with six other organizations has set a goal of registering as many as 5million previously unregistered evangelical voters, and its sending out millions of voters guides that compare Romneys and Obamas position on issues of important to conservative Christians. Of course the slow economic recovery may be the primary reason. Mitchell Landsberg from Los Angeles Times stated But Obama has also lost support among some evangelicals for his support of the same-sex marriage, and for policies perceived to be threatening to religious freedom, including a rule in his healthcare plan that would required some religious institutions to provide contractive services to their employees(PG1). Religion has the power to make politicians gain or lose votes although in some cases religions does not respect the feelings of those that like people of the same

sex or those who have gotten an unwanted pregnancy. Like president Obama supports gay marriage therefore he have lost the votes of evangelicals, which only focus on the religious and not the bigger picture. Using religion as a way of gaining electoral votes its something that no one cant stop but us. While Romney used religion to gain as many possible votes from evangelical people. Obama lost votes from evangelicals for supporting marriage between people of the same sex. Politicians used many methods to get the votes from those who have or practice a religion, from contacting from seven to twelve times, from voice mails, texts messages and calls to personal visits. What would the elections be without politicians having to mention religion?