Charles Barkley has never pulled any punches on or off the court and that is true when it comes to discussing politics (or kissing ref Dick Bavetta, right). Yesterday, in an interview with CNN’s Campbell Brown, Barkley slammed evangelicals for dividing people. Great to hear a week out from the vote on Prop. 8 in California.

My idea of religion is we are supposed to encourage people to love other people. I am a big pro-choice guy. I am a big gay marriage guy and they are so divisive and that is not my idea of religion. My idea of religion is we are supposed to bring people together. We are not supposed to judge other people

Charles Barkley has never pulled any punches on or off the court and that is true when it comes to discussing politics (or kissing ref Dick Bavetta, right). Yesterday, in an interview with CNN’s Campbell Brown, Barkley slammed evangelicals for dividing people. Great to hear a week out from the vote on Prop. 8 in California.

My idea of religion is we are supposed to encourage people to love other people. I am a big pro-choice guy. I am a big gay marriage guy and they are so divisive and that is not my idea of religion. My idea of religion is we are supposed to bring people together. We are not supposed to judge other people

Brown: But aren’t you judging them?

Barkley: They judge me. First of all the notion that you would vote for a president because he is against abortion or against gay marriage is absurd. I think politicians have three jobs.

No. 1 they should fix our public school system, they should make sure our neighborhoods are safe and they should give people economic opportunity. I don’t care who is gay, I don’t care who is pro-choice. I really think that is the only three jobs that our government and our elected officials should have and we obviously got to do something about the health care and this situation. But to elect a president and vote for a president just because he is against abortion and against gay marriage is absurd.

Barkley has long talked about running for governor of Alabama someday. It would certainly not be a dull race.

Hat tip to Ted Rybka at GLAAD who blogged about this.

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