Disturbing Imagery

[a_cubed]

A Reuters report has some interesting numbers about Pew surveys of US citizens’ attitudes to religion and politics. There's some encouraging stuff in there, with now a bare majority of respondents (even within the error margins) saying that they feel there is too much religiosity in elections. As with much American (and, as pointed out in the article, other industrialised countries') politics there is polarisation going on as well, with people like white evangelicals and white catholics increasingly paranoid in their views of those with different religious views and seeing themselves as a persecuted minority (that’s a dangerous place to have a significant portion of your population and leads to the potential for radicalisation amongst a small proportion of that group). What bothered me the most about the piece, though, was the image from a Mitt Romney (I think it’s a Romney) Rick Santorum rally showing him and his audience publicly praying. Look at the man on his right (left hand side of the photo) and at the back row of the audience visible behind him. That’s awfuly close to a nazi salute they’re giving, or is this just me and Godwin’s law comes into play?

Current Mood:  worried