“When you mix religion and politics, you get politics”

“When you mis religion/science and politics, you get politics” (or, “When you mix politics and religion/science, you get politics”) means that politics overcomes any discussion of religion or science. “When you mix politics and science, what you wind up with is politics, not science” has been cited in print since 2000.
 
A New York (NY) Times Magazine article of October 28, 2007 quoted Reverend Gene Carlson of Wichita, who said “When you mix politics and religion, you get politics.” This was picked up on several blogs and Carlson repeated the saying on PBS television in 2008. “Science” replaced “religion” in the saying by at least 2011.
 
 
Google News Archive
4 June 2000, Record-Journal (Meriden, CT), “Lessons learned on the Left” by Glenn Richter, pg. E1, col. 7:
(Come to think of it, don’t worry that when you mix politics and science, what you wind up with is politics, not science. After all, that’s the whole point.)
 
New York (NY) Times
The Evangelical Crackup
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: October 28, 2007
(...)
Wondering how those theological and political debates were unfolding in conservative Wichita, I sought out the Rev. Gene Carlson, another prominent conservative Christian pastor who left his church last year. He spent four decades as the senior pastor of the Westlink Christian Church, expanding it to 7,000 members.
(...)
“When you mix politics and religion,” Carlson said, “you get politics.”
 
Philocrites
Sunday, October 28, 2007
‘When you mix religion and politics, you get politics.’
by Philocrites
David D. Kirkpatrick’s long article in today’s New York Times Magazine about the political fragmentation of white American Evangelicalism — the core of the “religious right” — is simply excellent. He offers political, sociological, theological, and generational explanations for the fact that Evangelicals in the pews aren’t lining up anymore with the old-line leaders of the Republican-Evangelical alliance. Read it. Quotes and commentary below.
 
The Walrus Said 
Sunday, 28 October, 2007
“When you mix politics and religion, you get politics.”
Republicans should read that and weep. I read it and rejoice.
 
It is Rev. Gene Carlson speaking, an aging conservative leader and pastor from Wichita, Kansas. According to a feature-length article in the New York Times Magazine by David D. Kirkpatrick, we are on the verge of a sea change in political thinking in evangelical circles.
 
PBS.org 
Week of 1.25.08
Transcript: God and Politics 2008
(...)
BRANCACCIO: Pastor Gene Carlson has experienced that disappointment firsthand.
(...)
CARLSON: “When you—when you mix religion and politics you tend to end up with politics.” (LAUGHS)
 
NYTimes.com—Opinionator
April 4, 2008, 3:55 pm
Romney’s Ex-Friends
By TOBIN HARSHAW
(...)
COMMENTS
April 4, 2008 6:16 pm
This says little if anything about Mitt Romney and everything about the politicization of the evangelical movement. “When you mix politics and religion, you always end up with politics.” Shame on all of them.
— James
       
TippingPitchers.com Forum
Razzy     
05-07-2008 04:38 PM
(...)
A wise man once said that when you mix religion and politics, you get politics.
 
The Pueblo (CO) Chieftain
Pulpit at the polls?
Amendment 48 poses ethical, medical questions
Posted: Saturday, August 30, 2008 12:00 am
By LORETTA SWORD
(...)
The Rev. Alex Howard of St. Peter the Apostle Episcopal Church was unequivocal in his repose.
 
“What do you get when you mix religion and politics? You get politics.”
   
Google Books
The Podium, the Pulpit, and the Republicans:
How presidential candidates use religious language in American political debate
By Frederick Stecker
Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger
2011
Pg. XIX:
“Mix religion and politics,” a friend told me, “and you’ll always get politics.”
 
Ace of Spades HQ
November 22, 2011
New Round of ClimateGate Emails Reveal “Scientists” Extremely Interested In “The Cause,” Public Relations
You know what you get when you mix science and politics? You get politics, period.