Except religion is a choice, unlike race, gender, or sexual orientation.
Choosing a running mate with a belief system similar to yours or that resonates with people you want to vote for you is much different than choosing a running mate on a characteristic they can’t control.
Nonsense: Religion is a "choice" exactly as much as you can simply "choose" to be a different religion if your current one is being discriminated against. Millions of people the world over live with horrible discrimination (or even are killed) because of their religion.
And if we're going down this path, I'd argue that the party that tries to represent the under-represented races, under-represented religions, and under-represented sexes is far less of a problem than the one that only tries to represent the majority race / religion / sex. The politically powerful majority unjustly treating the politically weak minority is much more of a realistic problem than the reverse.
Except we are talking in the context of choosing a Presidential running mate in the United States, so that’s not exactly relevant. Hell, 50% of the 4 Dem candidates are Jews, and none of the 5 major candidates (including Trump) could be called serious Christians.
It is extremely relevant.
1) We're talking about whether religion is a "choice" or not. If people can't just "choose" something different then it's obviously not "just a choice", it's obviously something deeper. Like part of their identity maybe?
2)
Here is the list of protected classes in the US, of which religion is definitely one, which I would say is the whole basis of this conversation. "Choosing a running mate based on a protected class status is wrong" is at least a whole lot more of a coherent argument than "Choosing a running mate based on a choice/not-a-choice is wrong" is.
Also GTFO with your no-true-Scotsman nonsense. Biden shows every sign of being a committed Catholic and Warren is an open Methodist. Both Catholics and Methodists fell under the umbrella of "Christian" last time I checked. Both candidates have quoted scripture on the campaign trail. Just because you don't agree with Warren or Biden's politics doesn't mean you can call them "not serious Christians".
I might agree with you that Trump is not a "serious Christian", but he claims to be and neither of us have the authority to declare him otherwise. And Trump and the two Jews (Bloomberg and Sanders) are just examples that proves my other point harder (the one you edited out). If Republicans weren't playing hard into "Christians-only" identity politics then Trump wouldn't
need to superficially be a Christian, would he? Jews won't
almost exclusively be running for Democratic seats, would they?
Republicans are
far more discriminatory / identity-politics-bound than Democrats are. And Democrats are sticking up for the little guys, where such a thing is maybe a little more morally permissible, Republicans are solely for crushing the minorities (until they become one!).