Religion & Law

Today's Star-Tribune has an article about the DFL mailing depicting a priest nondenominational preacher wearing a collar, and Mark Dayton, the DFL candidate for governor, (kind of) condemns the mailing:

"I believe the brochure's picture showing a man of the cloth is inappropriate," Dayton said in a statement. "I believe that it is inappropriate to bring religion into a campaign as this image and others do."

I'm not sure what he means by "as this image and others do."  My own misgivings have nothing to do with the DFL bringing religion into a campaign, but with the message that a reasonable observer might glean from the particular way they brought religion into this campaign.  Dayton subsequently points out that many faith leaders objected to Gov. Pawlenty's budget cuts, so he must not be categorically opposed to religious references in political discourse.  Still, we need to be careful not to allow a particular ham-handed invocation of religion in politics to further contribute to the privatization of religion.