GUEST COMMENTARY: Judge Romney by His Platform, Not His Mormonism

c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) With the 2008 presidential race under way, the issue of religion and the religious faith of the candidates _ an issue we thought we might have put behind us _ has once again risen to the fore. Forty-seven years have passed since then-presidential hopeful John F. Kennedy found it […]

c. 2007 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) With the 2008 presidential race under way, the issue of religion and the religious faith of the candidates _ an issue we thought we might have put behind us _ has once again risen to the fore.

Forty-seven years have passed since then-presidential hopeful John F. Kennedy found it necessary to openly declare he was “not the Catholic candidate for president” but “the Democratic Party’s candidate who happens also to be a Catholic.” Who would have thought the same nagging questions raised about Kennedy’s fitness for office would surface again in 2007?


For many years, people thought Kennedy’s forthright and candid approach had put the matter to rest. The 2000 presidential campaign had another first _ a Jewish vice presidential candidate, Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. The election showed Lieberman’s religious faith was not a factor in determining the outcome.

Many of us thought that, by now, a nominee’s religion was of concern only to hard-core bigots on the fringe. We Americans had demonstrated our freedom from the shackles of old-line religious prejudice.

Or had we?

The current presidential primary campaign finds yet another “first” in a candidate’s religious affiliation: Mitt Romney’s Mormonism.

To be sure, none of his rivals for the Republican nomination has raised the subject of Romney’s religion.

But two recent polls found that at least one quarter of Americans said they would not vote for a Mormon for president. These findings are troubling and disappointing, but so is the fact that some religious conservatives have compared the Mormon religion to a “cult” and its doctrines to paganism.

The Web site of Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, for example, says the religious beliefs of Mormons “are simply wrong,” and “when it comes to spiritual matters, the Mormons are far from the truth.” While doctrinal differences and debates among Christian groups are their own theological business, such assertions are surely painful and disturbing.

Seventeen members of Congress (from both major parties) are Mormons. Whatever their politics, their faith has not had an impact on their professionalism or their capacity to serve our country. Romney himself served as governor of Massachusetts without religion becoming an issue.


Unfortunately, there is a distressing disrespect in the way the Mormon religion is being written and talked about in the context of the election _ an attitude which, were it applied to Judaism, Catholicism, evangelical Christianity or Islam, most Americans would recognize as profoundly offensive.

In this election, Romney should be judged by his positions, not by ill-informed or biased misinterpretations of his religious views or myths about his faith. It is time for all decent people, regardless of political affiliation or philosophy, to say that this anti-Mormon stereotyping is unacceptable.

No doubt there are valid issues involving the role of religion in public life to be discussed in a campaign, including the separation of church and state, the acceptability of faith-based government programs, and the security threats posed by fanatics who exploit religion to advance an extremist agenda.

But the Constitution mandates that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification” for any public office in the United States. That means not holding a candidate’s private beliefs against him or her, if the candidate affirms, as Kennedy did, that regarding public matters and the national interest, “the church does not speak for me.”

In 1790, George Washington told the Hebrew congregation in Newport, R.I., that America would provide “to bigotry no sanction.” This promise must extend to our political campaigns as well.

(Abraham H. Foxman is the national director of the Anti-Defamation League and author of “Never Again? The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism.”)


KRE/LF END FOXMAN675 words

A photo of Abraham Foxman is available via https://religionnews.com.

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