Your Christian Duty to Oppose Hillary

Via Kleinheider, an argument for why Fred Thompson will, in fact, get the support of the Religious Right in spite of their reluctance to endorse him upfront:

If Fred Thompson is nominated to be the Republican candidate for President next year, you will not only see most of these so-called “conservative evangelicals”
not oppose Fred Thompson, but will see them support him with their wallets and their prayers.

You will hear preachers - as much as they can get away with it - crying out from their pulpits to their congregations that it is their “good Christian duty” to vote for Thompson.

You will witness the supposed “leaders” of Christian virtue in America do an about-face and instruct their followers via websites and radio programs and “voter guides” that they “cannot turn away from their God-given task” by failing to support Fred Thompson… especially if Hillary Clinton is the Democrat nominee.

Here's what royally pisses me off about this. I don't know whether Politico or Christopher Knight is right on what'll happen to Thompson, I suspect that the correct answer is somewhere in the middle.

However, the preachers that Knight mentions probably will, in fact, get away with outright telling their congregations that it's their good Christian duty to vote for Thompson. The Justice Department has become so politicized that they probably wouldn't even bother looking into the activities or the tax-exempt status of these hypothetical preachers. Meanwhile, preachers who DON'T advocate for one candidate or another, but who give anti-war sermons, are immediately investigated.

In contrast, Jewish rabbis often give sermons on political issues. But if one of them were to insinuate that the congregation should vote for one candidate or another, there would be HELL to pay...and that would just be from the congregation (even if most of them agreed), even before the government got involved.