AUSTIN — Some religions are more OK than others in Texas politics, it seems.

Gov. Greg Abbott got a reminder that his Catholic faith is viewed as less than Christian by some after getting a slew of insulting comments for posting a commemoration of the Virgin Mary on Facebook. Many of those comments came from the religious folks, some of whom accused him of worshipping idols.

Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller’s campaign told Muslims through a Facebook post that not only are they not OK with some people, but that those people think that they should be bombed like Nagasaki in World War II. That post, shared from another page, was removed. Miller’s campaign decided against apologizing for it.

The social media slurs came as a second Jewish congregation in San Antonio faced anti-Semitic graffiti on its property. For that, Abbott had a ready response, vowing, “Religious discrimination has no place in the state of Texas.”

But Abbott toughed out the slights on his own faith without a response.

He and other Republican officials also didn’t rally against Miller’s Facebook post, which showed the atomic bomb blast, referred to the bomb’s role in prompting Japan’s surrender in World War II and said, “It’s time we made peace with the Muslim world.” The post was decried as “racist, xenophobic hate speech” by Manny Garcia, Texas Democratic Party deputy executive director.

That flap went from offensive to weird when, as my Houston Chronicle colleague Lauren McGaughy reported, Miller’s agency spokesman called the post an error and then his campaign adviser said there would be no apology for it.

I guess no Republican wants to serve as Miller’s speech police.

But the political landscape, which in Texas state office is dominated by Republicans, is seeing few boundaries, and it’s easy to see a connection between hurtful comments and destructive action.

When extremists attack synagogues, “they’re doing it because they feel that society has allowed them a little bit of leeway to voice their views about things,” said St. Mary’s University political scientist Henry Flores. “That’s an extremist political move.”

As for Abbott, it’s no surprise that some fundamentalists who approved of other religious comments were taken aback by some Catholic references, Flores said. “I’ve been in parts of the Deep South where they still call Catholics papists,” he said.

“I think it would behoove the governor just not to put anything up that’s religious. Stay away from that,” Flores said. “He’s the governor of all Texans. Not just a small group that voted him into office.”

There’s little chance of that advice being taken by Abbott, who Monday is scheduled to speak at a training session by the Texas Renewal Project, which urges pastors and other Christian faith leaders to be involved in public policy and politics.

With Miller, Flores drew a correlation between his anti-Muslim posting and his crusade to allow schoolchildren access to cupcakes, fried foods and soft drinks.

“That kind of promiscuous attitude toward bad ideas spoke to some of the people in his campaign, and they put up this stupid thing,” he said. The anti-Muslim post — which substantially amps up the rhetoric with the potential for damage extending far beyond sugar-amped, overweight kids — “shows a lack of understanding, a lack of empathy — a lack of ethics and morals for heaven’s sake,” Flores said.

The power of words to prompt action came to the forefront outside Texas in recent days when two Boston men accused of beating and urinating on a homeless man cited his apparent immigrant status and said presidential hopeful Donald Trump, with his strong commentary against illegal immigration “was right. All these illegals need to be deported.”

“It sends signals to extremist elements, uneducated elements, to behave and say even more outrageous things,” Flores said. “Leadership in this nation, and principally in the Republican Party, hasn’t stepped up. … Instead they’re going out there and feeding the frenzy even more.”

pfikac@express-news.net

Twitter: @pfikac