There are probably a lot of reasons why I wouldn’t vote for Mitt Romney for president, but his religion is not one of them. In fact, while I think the Mormon faith is loaded with strange beliefs (which might be putting it mildly, depending on your perspective), I don’t think Romney’s apparent acceptance of those beliefs should in any way enter into political discourse. And, unless he makes an issue of them, his religious beliefs shouldn’t be a consideration in the minds of voters.
As with every citizen in America, Mitt Romney is entitled to believe or not believe whatever he chooses, and he should neither be praised nor condemned for the choice of religion he makes and abides by.
It’s a simple point, to be sure, but it is also one that the founders of the nation felt strongly enough about to make one of the first tenets of the Bill of Rights. Freedom of religion is, if you will, sacred in the United States. That freedom, along with the freedom to speak and to write whatever one chooses, is guaranteed in the First Amendment to the Constitution, and it certainly should protect a presidential candidate from disqualification based on a particular religious identification.
Newt Gingrich is hardly my favorite of the Republican contenders, but his conversion to Catholicism would also never be a reason I would deny him my vote. I’m not a big fan of the Catholic faith either, but Mr. Gingrich, so long as he keeps his religious beliefs to himself, is no more disqualified from the nation’s highest office for that reason than is Mr. Romney.
I’d like to be able to say the same thing about Rick Perry, who says he is a devout Christian (denomination unspecified). But unlike Mr. Romney, who does nothing more than acknowledge his religion, Mr. Perry wants his religion to be regarded as an asset, as if he is more qualified to be the nation’s president because he has a particular religious faith.
That perspective is a reason (among many others, I should hasten to add) why I would never vote for Rick Perry for president. When a political candidate makes his or her religion a campaign issue, he or she has crossed the line from freedom of religion to establishment of religion (that other religion clause the Founders had the good sense to include in the First Amendment).
Of course, Mr. Perry isn’t the first to wear his religion like a medal, not by a long shot, and he certainly won’t be the last. Politicians have been claiming to be guided by their relationship with God for as long as leaders have been chosen by elections.
And in claiming to be so guided, some have often gone so far as to suggest, if not declare, that God had actually spoken to them. Most recently, George W. Bush essentially made such a claim in his first term, as he led the country to the ill-devised war in Iraq that is just now finally coming to an end.
It’s all poppy-cock of course, or, to use a more polite, but no less derogatory word, it’s demagoguery. God doesn’t speak to anyone in the sense that these politicians would have us believe. He, or She, if you prefer, only “speaks” by providing a believer the ability to think through an issue with the guidance of religious beliefs and teaching. That is the extent of human dialogues with God, as anyone who is honest about the subject will readily admit.
And yet, politicians like Mr. Perry and Mr. Bush (and countless others of both political parties) would have the rest of us believe that they have their own direct line of communication established with the Almighty. I’d rather vote for a self-proclaimed sinner than someone spouting that kind of nonsense.
My vision of the utopian United States, on this point at least, would be to have candidates for political office decline to state their religious preferences or beliefs without fear of voter rejection or political attack for taking such a stance. In fact, I’d love to live in a country where candidates for political office knew that to make mention of their own religious views would be the same kind of disqualification in the eyes of the voters that failing to claim a religion is now.
Would the country be worse off as a result? Only if you believe that religious faith is a pre-requisite to public service. And, of course, if we just give that thought a moment of serious reflection, we must acknowledge that it most certainly isn’t.
Believers and non-believers alike are fully capable of formulating good and bad policies for the country. The most devout believers will just as likely disagree on all manner of public policy initiatives as they will agree. Ditto the most committed non-believers. Nothing regarding religious affiliation or spiritual belief dictates whether one is or is not suited to be a public servant, nor should it.
So, why then, if we can all agree with this basic point, do we insist that our politicians lay claim to some specific religious faith? Why, indeed, are we even so parochial as to insist that those politicians have a faith that is traditionally Judeo-Christian? (It’s on this point that Mr. Romney gets in trouble, as his religion is not accepted as truly Christian by those who claim to know what “truly Christian” denotes.)
As a non-believer (but happily willing to be convinced otherwise), I shudder in contemplation of the arrogance of those who claim to know the value of religious faith and thereby demand it in their candidates.
Submitted (Herman-Cain-style): For every true believer who would make a great leader, there are a thousand who would be disasters at the job. And, to be completely fair, for every committed non-believer who would make a great leader, there are also a thousand who would muck it up royally.
Religion is irrelevant to public service. When we realize that fact as a nation, we’ll have finally grown up.
Amen! =) Nice article, as usual. I would love for an atheist to get elected president in my lifetime. I’d even settle for an agnostic.
Ed,
Perhaps because your e-mail announcement of this column employed the word “utopian,” I am prompted to note that in Thomas More’s “Utopia,” political leaders were not required to adhere to any particular creed so long as they believed in God. The rationale was that an individual who did not hold his own conscience subject to higher authority would invest his own decisions with the functional equivalence of divinity. This is the flip side of the individual who believes he enjoys a direct line to God. [Ironically, the author of Utopia became the victim of his own dark side when he became Chancellor of England, and, terrified by the anarchy of the German Peasants’ Revolt, started burning Protestants at the stake.] In fairness to George W. Bush, I do not think he was claiming to have God’s express blessing for going to war–only that he had prayed and was making the judgment according to his best lights, in faith. Evangelicals often make the mistake of speaking to everyone the way they speak to one another, with the effect of exaggerating the personal quality of their relation to God. Even so, my Anglican “dread of enthusiasm” (a lovely 19th century term) makes me suspicious of persons claiming routine visits with the Holy Spirit, and I eschew politicians who express their qualifications in religious terms. The bottom line is that I agree with Thomas More’s rationale, but I am informed by the irony of his life and career. I prefer to be governed by God-fearing men and women; on the other hand, wisdom dictates limits because the religious fanatic is to be feared as much as the secular fanatic. I prefer an honest atheist to a true believing crackpot. Of course, true believing crackpots come in secular forms as well. But that is another issue. Aside from cutting evangelicals a bit more slack in their public pronouncements, I agree with you. A miracle?