This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2004, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Religion has always had clout in America's political arena; some feel too much and others too little. Lately, however, it has been difficult to tell the politician from the preacher. They seem to have combined into some new single, invincible entity portraying the characteristics of both in one glorious crusade toward a perfect marriage now consummated with the re-election of President Bush.

Am I the only one feeling that some sort of metamorphosis has produced a "same-sex marriage" between the two? Wouldn't it be ironic if a federal constitutional amendment were passed defining marriage as that sacred union between one man and one woman, while at the same time politics and religion became the perfect gay couple?

How do you see them? As a male couple or a female couple? Ah, the "good old days" when politics made strange bedfellows rather than identical bedfellows/bedgals. I'm not anti-gay marriage, just more familiar and comfortable with some traditional differences between partners in marriage; between politician and preacher.

Yes, wouldn't it be ironic if religion and politics have evolved into exactly what they both now attempt to make unconstitutional?

David C. Fisher

West Valley City