Vagabond is definitely on the right track here of the repercussions of religion influencing politics.
Religion should NEVER influence political decisions/legislation explicitly, unless it is in relation to clarifying some issue with the Constitution. Political policy should also try to avoid any kind of implicit relation to religion, although trying to separate such a strong religious influence as the humanitarian sentiment within the New Testament for instance as espoused by Jesus, Paul, and others would be nearly impossible.
But the absolute worst is when people use religion as a political tool or as justification for their actions. For one, doing so either commodifies religion into a secular tool or comes with the assumption that some person/group/political party understands the will of God/Allah/etc., which is inherently blasphemous in most religions, and is an insult to people of that religion.
People also mistakenly associate, in the U.S. for example, a political candidate's professed religious faith as an indicator of his morals and his strength as a candidate. This is a more recent phenomenon with the proliferation of the media and the resurgence of the evangelicals along with the Reganesque "Moral Majority" mentality. It has been extremely counterproductive to politics, and for a long period of time the Republican party "owned" God in a sense that the Republicans were most often associated with God. This is all pretty ironic considering that the Democratic Party's social policy, which at its foundation is concerned with helping the poor and easing economic disparities, is incredibly similar to Jesus' message. But don't tell the Republicans that. They think Jesus wants you to have a big house, an SUV, and to help the poor by telling them that only they can help themselves.
America's recent religious mentality (which has been steadily decreasing along with the Bush administration's and the Republican Party's disintegration within Bush's 2nd term) has also led us to be more racist when coupled with events like 9/11 and other terrorist events. In many ways it influenced the decision to wage war in Iraq as well as the American public's acceptance of that decision, not to mention our involvement in Israel which has gone back to WWII. It has given many people the mentality that it would be OK if we nuked the entire Middle East, thereby transforming them into the very people they hate and call religious extremists.
So religion can influence political decision in some ways without negative consequences, associating religion to closely with politics creates far too many problems to justify doing so. It also assumes a religious consensus among the people being represented, which is never the case.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
