Stormy Daniels and Donald Trump, brought to you by Mike Pence and the religious right Thank Mike Pence and evangelicals for Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels. As they force their religion on everyone but their allies, the hypocrisy has never been more naked.

Jason Sattler | Opinion columnist

Show Caption Hide Caption '60 Minutes' interview with Stormy Daniels yields high ratings The Stormy Daniels “60 Minutes” Interview has proved to be a winner for CBS, giving the news program it’s highest-rated episode in almost 10 years.

Congratulations, Mike Pence!

Since Donald Trump gave America’s kids the chance to learn about “Stormy Daniels,” his approval with self-identified white evangelical Protestants has risen 6%. Yes, amid a controversy about hush money to hide an affair involving a woman best known for performing in adult films, an alleged affair that took place just months after Trump’s third wife gave birth to their son, the president’s standing has actually improved with a group of voters who spent most of this century fretting about the sanctity of marriage.

The hypocrisy here is as obvious as Trump’s hundreds of conflicts of interests. American evangelicals, by and large, have decided that they can ignore Trump’s personal morality because they are getting something far more important in return — the chance to impose their personal morality on others.

And their role model for this devil’s deal is the evangelical who made the Trump presidency possible: Mike Pence.

“Trump’s got the populist nationalists,” said Steve Bannon, CEO of the Trump-Pence campaign in 2016. “But Pence is the base. Without Pence, you don’t win.”

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There is no human being who better personifies the unholy matrimony between the people who think America is a Christian nation and the people who think America is a corporate nation.

Pence has been a walking, squinting, nodding commitment to the GOP’s base ever since then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort engineered a “mechanical problem” with Trump’s Boeing 757. That led to an extra night in Indiana and apparently Trump’s decision to ask Pence — then the governor — to be his running mate.

Having at his side a man who calls himself “a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order” was taken as a sign from above that the thrice-married failed casino owner would keep his promises to the religious right — especially the one about appointing a younger Antonin Scalia to fill the Supreme Court seat that should have gone to Merrick Garland.

And Trump appears to better at keeping his vows to the religious right than to his wife.

The confirmation of Neil Gorsuch keeps Roe v. Wade on life support. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has waged what has been called a “secret war on transgender health care” that’s certainly not a secret to evangelicals or transgender Americans. Betsy Devos’ Education Department has decided trans kids aren’t as worthy of care and protections as, say, predatory lenders.

And there’s nothing secret at all about the repeated, clumsy attempts to ban trans people from the military, a policy that seems to have its only value in distracting from Trump’s personal and political failures.

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While Pence and evangelicals have refrained from judging Trump’s personal immorality, they’ve backed the administration’s efforts to put average Americans at the mercy of the whims of people in positions of power based on claims of religious belief.

A rule from the Department of Health and Human Services insists that your employer should be able to decide if you’re worthy of birth control coverage. Because your boss may have deeply held religious beliefs about whether your endometriosis should be treated.

And another HHS policy would let health care workers decide whether they want to treat patients based on their religious or moral beliefs. The new policy could allow doctors and nurses to deny a wide array of services, from birth control prescriptions to basic care of children of gay parents.

Oddly enough, these discussions of using religious objections to deny care rarely venture into, say, denying treatment of sexually transmitted diseases to serial adulterers.

The right’s fixation on abortion and health care for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people —while ignoring the moral aspects of adultery — is especially baffling considering that Jesus actually mentions adultery, over and over, but never clearly states his views of gay marriage or the morning-after pill.

This hypocrisy isn’t new but it’s never been more obvious.

When Mike Pence signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which seemed to allow businesses in Indiana to deny service based on religious beliefs, no one worried that adulterers wouldn’t be able to get a wedding cake.

Taking a stand against adultery was easy when it was a Democratic president. But the right’s obsession with abortion, gay rights and other “sins” that straight white men generally aren’t inclined or even biologically able to commit reveals something very dark about religious conservatives: They’re fierce defenders of their right to force their religion on their perceived enemies, and only their enemies.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump is allowed to get away with what appears to be serial adultery (as well as his many other alleged offenses against women), smoothed over with money, lies and lawsuits, instead of humility and repentance.

Mike Pence made this all possible, and he should be ashamed of himself.

Jason Sattler, a writer based in Ann Arbor, Mich., is a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors and host of The Sit and Spin Room podcast. Follow him on Twitter: @LOLGOP.