Godliness Good for GOP?

Is any expression of religious faith harmful to Democratic hopes of taking back the White House? It's obvious that political reverends can influence their flocks to vote Republican. However, apolitical expressions of religious faith may be just as bad for them, according to Newsday columnist James Pinkerton:

"The 18th-century Scottish politician Alexander Fletcher once declared, let me write a nation's songs, and I care not for its laws. By that he meant that culture precedes politics; it's a person's culture, including religion, that shapes his or her attitudes toward government.

"So the recent visit of Joel Osteen, pastor of a Houston megachurch - he filled most of the Nassau Coliseum and Madison Square Garden - is a revealing indicator of the future cultural and political direction of the country. In the past six years, the boyish Osteen has emerged as perhaps the hottest of the Christian televangelists.

"Yet unlike, say, Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell, Osteen is entirely apolitical. But make no mistake: Osteen is a Christian proselytizer....

"And more bad news is coming. John Gibson, my colleague at Fox News, has just published a book, 'The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought.' The liberals doing the plotting, including the litigating, Gibson adds, are almost all Democrats.

"Critics will savage the book, of course, but one suspects Osteen's fans will agree with Gibson. Such agreement is gold for the GOP - and will outshine whatever happens to Karl Rove or Tom DeLay."