Mitt Romney gave his "don't disqualify me because I'm a Mormon" speech today, trying to fend off Mike Huckabee's surge among evangelical Christians. He spoke some moving words about religious freedom and tried to convince listeners that people of faith are all alike (until he talked about Muslims later in the speech). But he indicated that the president should be a man of faith, and should represent all people of faith in America. What he did not say is that the president represents all people in America, period. In fact, for blatant political reasons, he attacked people who profess no religion. He said:
"We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion. But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They are wrong."
In this deliberate slap at atheists, agnostics, and also people of faith who believe in a much clearer separation of church and state than most of the republican candidates, Romney is saying it is important to have religion in politics, and those who wish to have less religion in politics are somehow less worthy as Americans.
Romney also referred to the founders' determination not to have a religious test for candidates for public office, but instead of agreeing with them, Romney was basically implying that there is a test, and he has passed it. By saying a president must be a person of faith, Romney was instituting his own test, which would exclude atheists and agnostics as viable candidates for the presidency.
What Romney, and many in the Republican Party don't seem to grasp is that it is possible to consider oneself a member of a religious faith, or a very spiritual person with no specific religious affiliation, and still desire a secular society. There is no secular "religion" that I know of, but there is a desire on the part of some of us, including some with deep religious faith, to keep religion out of politics, because when you don't keep religion out of politics you get two things: insisting God has anointed you as candidate, or using religion as a weapon against an opponent.
The current religious test that many evangelicals seem determined to administer is one that says one must be an evangelical Christian to be president. This is why Romney, a Mormon, felt he had to give this speech today. It is also why you hear ordained Baptist minister Mike Huckabee saying, in response to a question about what accounts for his rise in the polls, that it was God responding to all the people praying for his candidacy. "It is the same power," he said, "that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of 500 people."
When politics and religion get all mixed up together you get this kind of response. You get Mike Huckabee in 2007 implying that God wants his candidacy to succeed, and you have George W. Bush in 1998 saying he believed God was calling him to be president.
At the same time, you have slanderous emails saying Barack Obama, a devout Christian, is a secret Muslim, who is hiding his real faith and who is a tool of al Qaeda who will help them destroy America from within. Anyone who has followed the candidacy of Barack Obama knows this to be absurd, but if you mix politics and religion, (and in this case paranoid fears of terrorism) and if you set up an informal religious test for the presidency, then all you have to do to succeed in getting yourself or your candidate elected is to prove you meet the test and your opponents do not.
Huckabee, like Bush before him, is sending signals to evangelicals that he passes the test, while Romney and Obama are faced with an uphill climb just to prove they are worthy. Romney, a Mormon, must prove Mormonism isn't that different from Christianity, while Obama, a Christian, must prove that he did not adopt his father's Muslim faith.
If we really honored the intent of the founders to disavow any religious test for public office, they wouldn't even be in that position, and those who are attacking them wouldn't have a leg to stand on.
I do not believe what the Mormons believe, and as an outsider I view some of their beliefs as more like science fiction, but I also don't think Mitt Romney would bring his religious beliefs into the presidency, nor allow leaders of the Mormon Church to tell him what to do. I know Barack Obama is not a Muslim, and having a Muslim father (who left the family when he was a baby) and having lived in a Muslim country for a few years doesn't make him one. And I also don't think Obama would allow his Christian pastor to influence his decisions as president.
There are many things worse than promoting a secular society where people are free to practice any religion they want even as they keep it out of politics and government. One of them is ending up with George W. Bush as president. The others are voting for candidates because they profess the "right" religion, or demonizing them in the name of religion.
