It gets murky real quick due to what is going on in our culture
Lumberman makes a good point here, but it is not something new in our culture, I do not think.
Now that the election season is upon us, I could not help but notice a editorial in the local paper.
The gist of it was....."We have preachers telling us how to vote, and politicians telling us what to believe" ...the mindset of the rest of the piece was somewhat like what I see expressed here, about the recency of the change.
You do not have to look very hard at the history of this country, to see that the characterizations in religious and political discussions often are, and have for a long time been, conflated and abused.
Look at one of the the most shameful and devastating events in our national history, The war between the states. 150 years later we still cannot agree on the causes that brought brother against brother, and decimated this country. Was is about economics? race? morality? Freedom?
All of these things to some degree or another for sure, but to say that it was religious or political is only to describe the lens that you are looking through. To be clear, I am not saying that seeing through a lens is wrong, we all it do to some extent.
Homosexuality? Moral decadence? Drugs and rock and roll? The decline of our culture? State your views as you own, and there should not be a problem in a civil discussion. Citing your views, as such and such, and then presenting it as authoritative for someone else because it was ordained by God, Nature, the President or the Supreme Court, is when we bring religion and politics into the discussion.