I don't necessarily think what you're describing here is people passing off judgment more than it is just your average tribalism.

People tend to encircle the wagons when a leader of their community is attacked, whether fairly or not. And that's just sort of a natural human tendency. I mean, we're seeing this with Trump, but we also see this with AOC and Bernie Sanders as well.

I think it applies here, and I think it's why the reasoning is so bad because it's post-adhoc reasoning as most people simply just get defensive when their leader is "attacked".

I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying that the phenomenon you're describing is much bigger of a problem than just religion. It tends to be with any groups that people form.

I do agree with you though, that I do wish people would drill down into their own morality more often to discover what they are comfortable with and what they are not comfortable with and to really ask questions on why they have the believe what they believe.