I find that oftentimes, politics dictates religion. More precisely, our political preferences can have an impact on our religious beliefs, just like our religious beliefs often affect our political preferences. We want so badly for our team to win that either we’re willing to compromise our principles, or we realize that our principles aren’t really our principles, or that we now have a better set of principles. Sometimes that’s bad, sometimes that’s good.

To wit:

Tomorrow, for the first time, a large majority of white evangelicals are going to vote for a presidential candidate who is a Mormon. That’s a good sign; a large portion (if not a majority) of white evangelicals do not consider Mormons to be Christians, but regardless, they’re willing to elect one.

Tomorrow, for the first time, a large majority of black evangelicals are going to vote for a presidential candidate who (occasionally) favors gay marriage. That’s a good sign; a large portion (if not a majority) of black evangelicals oppose gay marriage, but regardless, they’re willing to elect someone who supports it.

Now, this doesn’t mean that anybody’s abandoned their principles, or modified them dramatically. To tolerate is neither to agree nor to accept, but I’d like to think that this election has made Americans a bit more tolerant of each other. And we’ll see what happens with the evangelicals over these next few years.