Last week Bill Maher said: “There are 278 Republicans in Congress. (With Eric Cantor’s defeat), they are now all Christian and all white except for one black senator, who was appointed.”
With tortured twisted reasoning, Politifact rates that Half True. First they describe the Dems:
The 2012 elections ushered in the first Buddhist in the Senate (Hawaii’s Mazie Hirono, a Democrat), the first Hindu in either chamber (Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat), and the first Congress member to list her religious affiliation as “none” (Arizona Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat) . . . They joined two Muslims (Democrats) and a Unitarian Universalist (a Democrat).
They don’t offer a total of non-Christian Dems in Congress. It’s 37. Now here’s what they say of Congressional Republicans:
When it comes to Republicans,192 of 278 GOP members identify with a Protestant denomination (Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, etc.), 70 identify as Catholic, three are Orthodox Christian, and 12 are Mormon (more on that in a moment). Cantor, a Republican from Virginia, is Jewish and makes No. 278, but Brat, the Republican who could succeed him after the November election, is Catholic.
So until the next Congress is sworn in in January, we can count 277 Christian and one Jew. Politifact notes that some people don’t consider Mormons Christian. Which matters not at all because that’s how Mormons identify.
So that’s 37 non-Christian Dems and one (ONE) non-Christian Republican. Yup, that’s half alright.
Are Republicans all white? Politifact says half-true because there are seven Hispanics. For some reason they felt compelled to mention that there are also three GOP Senators .
To say the other Republicans in Congress are all white depends on your definition of “all white,” which isn’t always so easy to define.
There are no other African-American Republicans in Congress (there are 43 black Democrats). There also are no Asian or Pacific Islander Republicans in Congress (there are 13 Democrats).
But there are three Hispanic Republican senators and seven Hispanic Republicans in the House. Those Hispanics?
So there you go – the Dems have 56 and the GOP has seven. Definitely half.
You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you cannot have both.
Whatever Works 
Interesting, Moe. I was inspired to look up Unitarian Universalism and found that interesting also. From its Wikipedia page I gather it is an organization trying to use the religious format to achieve Rodney King’s wish: “Why can’t we all just get along?” Good luck with that.
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We have a Unitarian ‘church’ group here and I am acquainted with quite of few of the congregants. They are deeply civic minded and reach out . . . but they’re a small group of like minded and agree with each other on everything pretty much. Good intentions and all, but proably will always be small groups. Cuz like you said . . . we humans aren’t real good at that getting along thing.
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You’ve summed them up well. UU is a social group that uses the format of religion as a gathering point and tax dodge. Sadly, however, they not all that interested in “getting along,” at least not from my experience. They’re even more intolerant of others’ beliefs than is common among more orthodox sects of the Abrahamic faiths.
Still, Moe is right. They’re fairly civic minded and do a bit of good at the secular level.
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