Taking the Lord’s name in vain

The “wall of separation” between Church and State remains firm in Mexico, despite an occasional breach.  Bishops sometimes get away with veiled, but unmistakable, references to one party or political platform or another, but the people who listen to their sermons were probably going to vote for (or against) whatever the Bishop was referencing anyway.  For politicos and political parties, there is a controlling mechanism that — for all its faults — takes that wall very seriously.

From the Latin American Herald Tribune:

A Mexican politician has been fined $2,000 for referring to God in public during his successful campaign for governor of the northwestern state of Sinaloa, election officials said.

Gov.-elect Mario Lopez Valdez was slapped with the fine Wednesday by Mexico’s highest elections body.

“I will win with the will of the people and of God,” Lopez Valdez told supporters in an address during his run for the governorship.

The candidate, in fact, referred to God on two occasions ahead of the July 4 gubernatorial election.

Lopez Valdez was also fined for saying that “it cannot be stopped when the will of the people, the stars and God are aligned.”

The phrases cost Lopez Valdez a fine of 27,235 pesos (about $2,000) levied by the Sinaloa Elections Council and upheld by Mexico’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal.

The state elections agency also issued the governor-elect an official warning.

I don’t see that the Electoral Tribunal could put the fear of God into our new governor, not unless they substantially raised the fine.