Pity Bryan Fischer. After spending much of the GOP primary seasontelling the Christian Right that Mormons aren't real Christians (and that the First Amendment doesn't even apply to them), Fischer's worst fear was realized: The Heretic won the primary, Fischer was not invited to speak at this year's Values Voter Summit, and now the poor bear-obsessed schlub has to figure out how to kinda-sorta support Mitt Romney without going back on his insistence that Mormons are anathema. And so he has decided that maybe, since America's very survival is at stake, sure, well, yeah, it might be OK to vote for a Mormon as long as you tell Jesus that you're really voting against the Kenyan Usurper.

What's really fun (for a certain value of "fun") is watching Fischer walk the tightrope between his hatred for Barack Obama and the backlash he might face from fellow Christianists for saying something that might seem like a compromise with those awful Utah cultists:

To use a common figure of speech, without implying that either of these men is "evil," we are faced with a choice between the lesser of two evils. My personal counsel to fellow believers in such a situation is simple and straightforward: when Christians are faced with a choice between the lesser of two evils, Christians should choose less evil.

Translation: Yeah, definitely evil. I just have to cover my ass and protect the American Patriarchy Association's tax exemption. But the America-hating preznit is more evil than the Heretic, probably.

Gosh, I wonder if the Bible can help? The Bible is, after all, Life's Instruction Manual™!

What we must understand as Christians is that there is no explicit command in Scripture which tells us for whom to vote in a situation such as this. Since we are neither commanded to vote for a Mormon, nor to refuse to vote for a Mormon, this decision falls into that large gray area of life governed by individual conscience.

Say, Bryan? Were you aware that the Bible actually says absolutely nothing at all about voting because -- and I know this will come as a shock to you -- it was written by people to whom the very idea of representative democracy was entirely foreign? It's not like they were a bunch of debauched Athenians, after all. The Bible has some awesome advice on how to treat your slaves, how to get along with your concubines, and how to stone your children to death if they're disobedient, but not one word about how you or anyone else should vote.

One might just think that there'd be a lesson in there. Ah, yes, "individual conscience," that must be it! That's a pretty good guide! And really, as long as the Bible doesn't say anything about it, it would be wrong to inferfere with matters of conscience!

Christians will come to different conclusions about what the path of wisdom is for them, and our responsibility to our brothers and sisters in the faith is to respect the place to which their conscience directs them. We must not attempt to legislate for them or seek to impose our standards on the dictates of their own conscience.

On the other hand, slutty womenfolk who want any degree of control over their own bodies? We TOTALLY need to legislate for them and seek to impose our standards on the dictates of their conscience, because the Bible tells us we absolutely have to. Sorry, ladies! Sucks to be you, huh?

[RenewAmerica]