As a Jewish man married to a Catholic woman, I have a confession to make: I don’t know enough about Islam, Buddhism, or Mormonism to enter into even the most rudimentary discussion of any of them.

But this much I do know: I have met enough individuals of different faiths, as well as my fair share of atheists and agnostics, to know that you don’t have to attend a particular church to be a good person, nor does subscribing to another set of beliefs automatically make you evil.

This is in no way meant to suggest that someone can choose a faith in much the same way they do a fast food restaurant (often basing the decision more on marketing and giveaways than quality). I would hope that most, if not all, such choices ultimately rest on how strongly the tenets of a faith resonate with the individual. Or perhaps the choice isn’t made so much by the person as much as the person is chosen by a Higher Power.

I’ll leave all that to the philosophers, theologians, and panelists on The View to figure out.

But, being unable to avoid an avalanche of coverage of the campaign for the presidency, I’m becoming increasingly offended by how much attention is paid to what church a person attends (or doesn’t attend) and how little on how a person treats others. Did Barack Obama spend time as a youth in a Muslim school? How devout of a Mormon is Mitt Romney? Which Christian candidate has the strongest conservative credentials?

My concern with this approach to judging a person’s ability to lead a nation is that, because we live in a pluralistic society where we espouse freedom of religion, by its nature it minimizes the rights of every citizen to be treated fairly and equally.

To look at it simply, we need only turn to our own industry, health care. None of us would provide a better level of care to someone based on the disease he has. We don’t "prefer" psoriasis suffers over cancer victims. Nor do any but the most prejudiced healthcare professionals treat representatives of select economic, religious, or racial groups better than others and, when it’s discovered this is happening, most often it is stopped. It’s not just illegal; it’s wrong and a violation of all that healthcare professionals stand for.

A few weeks ago, at the height of the busy holiday season (which, like the race for the presidency, seems to come earlier each cycle and is increasingly mind-numbing), a woman stopped her car in front of me, in the middle of a strip mall parking lot. There was no room on either side to go around her, especially because she left her door open as she exited her car and walked about 20 yards to a mailbox. Nor could I back up, as about a dozen other vehicles were stopped behind me. So we sat and waited. This woman had no concern whatsoever for how her selfish act might affect any of the people idling behind her.

Do you suppose she was Jewish, Muslim, or Christian? Does she attend services often? Does she raise her children in a particular faith? Does she take some kind of smug pride because she worships the "right" deity?

I don’t think you need a Ph.D. in religious studies to understand that the cornerstone of most major religions is love for others and that faith without action is worth little. The various faith traditions present in America should unite, not divide, us. But, for too many people, faith is seen as a simple way to choose sides in the age-old game of "Us vs. Them." (Maybe that’s why on Sundays it seems there are fewer people in church than at football games, where it’s easier to figure out who is on what side.)

Problem is, at a time when our country could use all the prayers it can get, we seem incapable of raising our voices together. We’d rather shout at each other.

Harvey Kart