Evangelicals and Torture

There is a conference happening now (appropriate to the date, I guess) sponsored by Evangelicals for Human Rights: "A National Summit on Torture: religious faith, torture, and our national soul". Accompanying that conference was a poll (PDF) of southern evangelicals on torture. The findings are deeply disturbing. One thing that strikes me so clearly about this is the complete disconnect between evangelicals' supposed adherence to biblical literalism and their political beliefs. Here are some findings from the poll:

• Only 22% of those surveyed believe that torture is never justified. The rest think it can be rarely, sometimes, or often justified. Will someone tell me where in the Bible Jesus said that torturing your enemies was OK?
• 48% think that the "golden rule" isn't relevant to torture - the golden rule being that things that one wouldn't want to be used against the US shouldn't be used against others. I take this to mean that 48% of the evangelicals in this poll would redact Matthew 7:12 from the Bible.
• Even those who use Christian teachings, 42% think torture can be sometimes or often justified. I really want chapter and verse on that one.

This just pisses me off. These are the self-same evangelicals that will point to passages in the Bible that are a whole lot less obvious to condemn gays and lesbians and women who make the difficult choice to have an abortion. Please. Be consistent, or leave me the f**k alone. I am glad that an organization like Evangelicals for Human Rights exists, and I hope that they are able to really reach other Evangelicals, and perhaps explain the Bible to them? Hat tip to Faith in Public Life for the info.