With only 8 days before Election Day, votes are getting more and more precious. But the urgency of campaigns can not be allowed to weaken our protection of religious integrity. In recent weeks, The Interfaith Alliance has issued a call to religious leaders across the country, asking them to reject partisan voter guides and reject candidates using their houses of worship as places to campaign.
Political candidates violate the sanctity of religion by seeking votes from pulpits.
Yesterday, President Clinton visited Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, VA and Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington, DC, and implicitly asked members of these congregations to support particular candidates and a specific political agenda. The President is not the only politician to speak in a house of worship during this campaign. Other candidates have made recent appearances in churches touting their partisan agendas. With the same vigor with which The Interfaith Alliance has denounced the distribution of partisan voter guides in houses of worship by organizations like the Christian Coalition, we are also calling on all political candidates to refrain from politicizing pulpits and imploring partisan votes from within worshipping congregations. As political candidates who have professed their faith openly to the American people, it is my hope that they understand the risks they pose to houses of worship that engage in this political activity.