“A group wanted to put up a Christian Nativity scene at the Capitol. But the rules are that it must be put up in the morning and taken down at night. No one volunteered. I cannot stand by and allow Satan to win this one. I have volunteered to put up and take down the Christian Nativity scene everyday.”

— Michigan Rep. Rick Jones (R), quoted by the Huffington Post.

A GOP lawmaker in Alabama “wants to erect a monument at the courthouse that would feature the Ten Commandments alongside other historical documents,” the Birmingham News reports.

Said Tim Guffey (R): “What I’m trying to do is erect a monument of historical documents. It’s the Constitution, the Ten Commandments and the Declaration of Independence. I feel like that’s what this country was founded on. These documents helped America become the greatest country in history.”

Kansas GOP official Gavin Ellzey said last month that “offending Muslims is the duty of any civilized person,” the Kansas City Star reports.

He added: “Especially with a .45.”

Wonk Wire: Strong connection between religion and political identity

“The influence of religious conservatives might be waning nationwide, but the movement only stands to grow in Congress,” Roll Call reports.

“Already this year, three candidates with close ties to massive churches won decisive Republican primaries. A fourth — Pastor Jody Hice — could win a Tuesday GOP primary runoff in Georgia and come to Congress in November.”

“Their victories come as public opinion has shifted dramatically on some social issues, notably same-sex marriage, denounced by most religious conservatives. The rise of the tea party and libertarian factions in the Republican Party has also diluted the influence of social conservative activists in the GOP.”

New York Times: “Jewish Republicans know they are not many in number. But at a recent gathering at the St. Regis Hotel in downtown Washington, they pondered the meaning of an especially alarming figure: zilch. As in zip, bupkis, zero.”

“The stinging defeat last month of Eric Cantor, the House majority leader and the highest-ranking Jewish politician in American history, has created the possibility of Republicans having no Jewish representation in the House or Senate for the first time in more than a half-century.”

A new Gallup poll finds 72% of U.S. Muslims approved of the job President Obama was doing as president during the first six months of 2014, higher than any other U.S. religious group Gallup tracks. Mormons were least approving, at 18%.

In general, majorities of those in non-Christian religions — including those who do not affiliate with any religion — approved of Obama, while less than a majority of those in the three major Christian religious groups did.

“Although Islam has a religious component, it is much more than a simple religious ideology. It is a complete geo-political structure and, as such, does not deserve First Amendment protection.”

— Georgia congressional candidate Jody Hice (R), quoted by the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

“Take me to fucking court because I don’t care. Minorities are not going to run my city.”

— La Vista, Nebraska Mayor Douglas Kindig, quoted by the Daily Beast, on atheists questioning his town-sponsored “day of faith.”

Alabama chief justice Roy Moore suggested earlier this year that the First Amendment only protects the religious speech of Christians, the Huffington Post reports.

Said Moore: “Everybody, to include the U.S. Supreme Court, has been deceived as to one little word in the First Amendment called ‘religion.’ They can’t define it.” Moore said. “They can’t define it the way Mason, Madison and even the United State Supreme Court defined it, ‘the duties we owe to the creator and the manner of discharging it.’ They don’t want to do that, because that acknowledges a creator god. Buddha didn’t create us. Mohammed didn’t create us. It’s the god of the Holy Scriptures.”

He added: “They didn’t bring a Koran over on the pilgrim ship, Mayflower. Let’s get real. Let’s go back and learn our history.”

Louisiana state Rep. Thomas Carmody (R) “scrapped his proposal to make the Holy Bible the official state book before it could go to a full vote of the state House of Representatives,” the New Orleans Times Picayune reports.

“The bill had become a distraction, he said. In introducing the legislation, Carmody always maintained he was not taking steps to establish a state religion, but rather to educate people.”

A new Hart Research poll finds that 68% of U.S. women voters oppose allowing corporations to refuse to cover contraception in their health plans because of religious objections.

Key findings: “Women of all demographics overwhelmingly support the provision of the Affordable Care Act requiring employers to cover contraception and other preventive health services for women, including 92% of Democrats, 83% of independents, 63% of Republicans and 79% of Catholics.”

Evangelist Franklin Graham is praising Russian President Vladimir Putin for his aggressive crackdown on homosexuality, saying his record on protecting children from gay “propaganda” is better than President Obama’s “shameful” embrace of gay rights, the Raleigh News & Observer reports.

“I think we got off that track when we allowed our government to become a secular government, when we stopped realizing that God created this nation, that He wrote the constitution, that’s based on biblical principles.”

— Former Rep.Tom DeLay (R-TX), in an interview on Global Evangelical Television.

“The growing specter of legalized gay marriage, which has been advanced by numerous court decisions starting with the Supreme Court’s overturning of the federal Defense of Marriage Act last year, seems to have put a scare in GOP lawmakers,” TPM reports.

“So they’ve started legislating, introducing a string of similar bills that claim to defend religious liberty, but would effectively allow for lawful discrimination against same-sex couples by businesses or government employees on religious grounds. The bills have appeared in Congress and at least six state legislatures.”

The Week: How Christianity gave us gay marriage.

“This war is waged in our courts and in the halls of political power. It is pursued with grim and relentless determination by a group of like-minded elites, determined to transform the country from a land sustained by faith into a land where faith is silenced, privatized and circumscribed.”

— Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), quoted by Politico, on the Obama adminisrtration’s “silent war” on religion.