Obama uses the Bible to “exploit what divides us.”

There are legitimate theological arguments on both sides of our political divide, but they are not equally well received. In America, it seems, one man’s moral teacher is another’s Torquemada — the difference is usually determined by party registration — and the returns on overt religiosity are mixed at best. As president, George W. Bush was repeatedly and pejoratively labeled “theocrat” for acknowledging his faith, and even the slightest intimation that his religious belief informed his political vantage point was perceived by the Left as symptomatic of an almost treasonous disrespect for the separation of church and state.

Throughout his political career, Barack Obama, too, has marshaled religious argument and imagery to his cause when politically expedient, but nary a whisper has followed his proclamations — even when his pastor of 20 years was exposed as an unreconstructed bigot. Obama’s appeals to religion and his claim to be “doing the Lord’s work” are cynical and mercurial enough to have pushed Michael Gerson amusingly to quip that, “even when Obama changes his views, Jesus somehow comes around to agreeing with him.” His varying use of Scripture has been nowhere more striking than with his gay-marriage “evolution.” Announcing his changed position on the issue to ABC News in May, Obama confirmed that he and Michelle are

both practicing Christians. . . . But, you know, when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule, you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated. And I think that’s what we try to impart to our kids, and that’s what motivates me as president, and I figure the most consistent I can be in being true to those precepts, the better I’ll be as a dad and a husband, and hopefully the better I’ll be as president.

In 2004, however, when running for the Senate, Obama explained that he opposed gay marriage because “what I believe, in my faith, is that a man and a woman, when they get married, are performing something before God, and it’s not simply the two persons who are meeting.” In 2008, the candidate confirmed his position, defining marriage in similar terms during a debate at the Saddleback Presidential Forum. “I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman,” Obama said. “Now, for me as a Christian — for me — for me as a Christian, it is also a sacred union. God’s in the mix.”

Perhaps God has evolved on the issue. Regardless, Obama elected to impress Him into the defense of higher taxes and redistribution of wealth, too. As the president told an audience at the University of Vermont on March 30 of this year:

I hear politicians talking about values in an election year. I hear a lot about that. Let me tell you about values. Hard work, personal responsibility — those are values. But looking out for one another. That’s a value. The idea that we’re all in this together. I am my brother’s keeper. I am my sister’s keeper. That’s a value.