Politics, religion never mix in this dark comedy

Sometimes I feel we are all characters in a very dark comedy, but I am at a distinct disadvantage because I do not remember the past the way everybody else does.

Glenn Beck's recent Restoring Honor rally is a good example. This is the sort of event to which I would normally pay no attention. If Beck and his followers feel they need to restore their honor, that is their business. My honor is just fine. Or else it is beyond restoring.

The only reason I paid attention to Beck's rally was the participation of Tony La Russa and Albert Pujols.

La Russa is an interesting character in the dark comedy. In recent months, he's spoken in favor of the Arizona law cracking down on illegal immigration, and he's met with Beck and fellow Fox News personality Bill O'Reilly in the clubhouse. There are very few right-wing vegetarians. Throw in the fact that he is an animal rights activist and a resident of the Left Coast and you can see that he belongs to an exclusive club.

Pujols appears to be exactly what he seems: a devout Christian.

So I wrote about it. That is my job in the dark comedy. I write about the passing parade. In this instance, I wrote that their participation, which was in violation of the separation of baseball and politics, a principle that many Americans hold dear, had dragged the Cardinals organization into the muck. Also, I threw in my opinion that Beck is a demagogue.

Here comes the part where I do not remember the past the way everybody else does. I was deluged with angry e-mails contending that the Restoring Honor rally was not political. It was religious.

As if religion and politics exist on different planes.

In the past as I remember it, religion and politics have always mixed. In my youth, the civil rights movement arose from the black churches. Then white churches came aboard. More recently, the evangelicals and the Roman Catholics became unlikely allies in the fight to elect Republicans, who were seen as "pro-life" and "anti-gay marriage."

I swear I remember all of that.

With those memories, it was natural that I would think that when a right-wing commentator organizes a rally to restore honor shortly before the midterm elections, and when that rally is headlined by Sarah Palin, politics are involved.

But no, said my critics. Religion and politics are completely separate. Speaking of Palin, her participation at the rally made La Russa's participation even more bizarre. As governor of Alaska, she favored a wolf-killing program in which wolves were shot from helicopters and airplanes. And he loves dogs?

Oh, well. La Russa makes a lot of money. It is easy to understand why a wealthy person would be a conservative.

My column appeared on Monday, and I spent most of that day responding to e-mails from people who don't remember religion and politics ever mixing. Why would I even think they were connected?

On Monday night, I turned on the television to watch the Cardinals. The game was boring. I did something I hardly ever do. I hit the remote control to see what was on the next channel.

It was Larry King. One of his guests was Dana Loesch. She is a conservative radio talk-show host here in St. Louis. What's more, she used to write a column for the online edition of this paper. Her column was called "Mamalogues." It was very clever, and sometimes intensely personal. I remember when she wrote about pretending to be gassy so she would not have to have sex with her husband. But that was written with a light touch, and it was impossible to read her column and not like her. At least for me.

On King's show, she was kicking a dead horse in the person of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Apparently, the day after the rally to restore honor, Beck had said that most Americans would not recognize President Barack Obama's version of Christianity. So Loesch apparently felt compelled to bring up Wright to shore up that point.

Actually, I was surprised that Beck had brought up Obama's faith the day after the so-called apolitical rally. If faith and politics don't mix, why bring it up?

Also, I am told that Beck is a Mormon, and I am even more surprised that a Mormon would say something like that. Throughout their history, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have suffered persecution from other Christians who think their faith is out of the mainstream — unrecognizable, you might say. At least, that's the history I remember.

In fact, there was once a great Mormon settlement in the Illinois town of Nauvoo not far from here. It's worth a visit.

Mormons went there after they were expelled from Missouri. By 1840, Nauvoo was about as large as Chicago. But then anti-Mormonism sentiments grew. Joseph Smith, the founder of the church, and his brother Hyrum were arrested and jailed in Carthage. Mobs killed them.

Brigham Young led the Mormons from Nauvoo to Utah. The temple in Nauvoo was burned.

Now a Mormon says that Obama's Christian faith is unrecognizable to most Americans.

So it goes in the dark comedy.