Either we need to elect an atheist as president, or we need to push the preachers and piety out of politics.

Politics and religion are an unholy alliance, to say the least. But political candidates have become convinced that they can't win unless they thump a Bible and pump up the volume on their faith bona fides.

The nasty falling out of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. and Democrat Barack Obama illustrates the pitfalls of mingling politics and the pulpit.

Heading into tomorrow's primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, Obama again sought to distance himself from Wright's remarks last week at the National Press Club, describing them as "divisive hateful language" on NBC's "Meet the Press" yesterday.

"These connections between religion and a specific campaign are fraught with peril," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

What's not clear, Lynn said, is whether the public wants to know as much about a candidate's faith as is being revealed.

They shouldn't. It's irrelevant. The two most pious U.S. presidents of the modern age are the born-again Democrat Jimmy Carter and Republican George W. Bush.

The two worst presidents of that era not nicknamed "Tricky Dick"?

Carter and Bush.

If a politician is moral, ethical, competent and wise, why should we care whether he's got religion or not?

But Wright isn't the first minister to be politically incorrect.

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Rev. Jerry Falwell pointed the finger of blame at pagans, feminists, the ACLU, and gays and lesbians, among others.

The Rev. Pat Robertson concurred. And politicians continued to seek their blessing.

More recently, John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, has largely gotten a pass on his endorsement courtship of the anti-Catholic televangelist, the Rev. John Hagee, who called Hurricane Katrina God's punishment to a sinful New Orleans.

Obama, meanwhile, can't win. Some of the same religious bigots who called him a closet Muslim and conflated him with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are gleefully damning him for his association with the Christian Wright.

It needs to stop. Politics and religion are both diminished by their association with each other.

Frankly, I don't care what Hillary Rodham Clinton's favorite Bible verse is. Faith is not a legitimate political issue.

"When you think about it, there's no reason for presidential candidates to have religious advisers," Lynn said. "Presidents don't do anything about religion. We have a secular country."

Lynn said only one question about religion really matters: How, if at all, will a presidential candidate's religious beliefs affect his or her policies?

There's only one correct answer, as far as he's concerned. A president should build policies within the constraints of the Constitution, "which essentially means you can't impose your religion's beliefs on others."

If you can't do it while president, please don't do it during your campaign.
Contact Michael Paul Williams at (804) 649-6815 or mwilliams@timesdispatch.com.