OPINION & EDITORIAL
You, Romney, are no Kennedy
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Also by Ryan Greenfield:
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by Ryan Greenfield
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
You might expect a member of a religious minority running
for president to strongly support religious tolerance. You would expect this
candidate to likely be a fervent defender of the separation between church and
state. You'd expect him to passionately defend one's right to worship as he
pleases or even his right to not worship at all. In the case of Mitt Romney,
who is a Mormon, you would be mistaken.
Last week at Texas A&M University, Mr. Romney gave a
speech, "Faith in America," about his beliefs on the role of religion in
politics. It was supposed to be his "JFK moment" — in fact, it took place just
miles from where President Kennedy, a Catholic, gave his famous speech on
religion. Like Mr. Kennedy, the goal of Mr. Romney's speech was not to delve
into controversial Mormon doctrine and explain it in detail to voters, but
rather to show in a general sense how "the governor's own faith would inform
his presidency if elected," a campaign spokesperson told CNN.
This was his chance to put to rest any lingering doubts
about his Mormonism. And there clearly are a lot of lingering doubts among
Americans. A Pew Research poll from August found that only half the American
public has a favorable view of Mormonism and a quarter would be less likely to
vote for a Mormon candidate for president, including one-third of Republicans
and evangelical Christians.
Many evangelical Christian Republican primary voters are not
going to vote for Mr. Romney simply because he is a Mormon. They consider
Mormonism to be a cult, regardless of the similarity in social conservative
values he shares with evangelical Christians. A speech like the one he gave
probably won't help him with these voters, since the very idea of separation of
church and state is anathema to many conservative Christians.
But should the faith of political candidates be an issue at
all in a nation that supposedly has constitutionally guaranteed religious
freedom and historic separation between church and state? This is the essential
double-standard in American politics. We're supposed to accept that faith
permeates everything a religious person does. We passively acknowledge that
faith is a necessarily positive influence; as long as you believe in something,
you're more likely to have strong moral values. But we can't ask candidates
specific questions about religious doctrine.
Yet, can't we suspect that a person's deeply held religious
views will affect his policy positions? If a candidate's religion bans a
certain thing (say, birth control pills) and he is a strong adherent of that
faith, aren't we entitled to know if strict adherence to that faith will
require the candidate to impose his religious views on those who don't share
them?
I don't think the YouTube question in the last debate about
whether the candidates take the Bible literally was out of bounds. If someone
does think the whole Bible is the inerrant word of God, it puts his or her
overall judgment into question. The same goes for candidates who would blindly
follow the decrees of the hierarchy of their religions.
This was exactly the kind of thing Mr. Kennedy was trying to
convince Americans not to worry about. Mr. Kennedy stated in his Texas speech
in 1960 that he believed in an America where "the separation of church and
state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president how to
act." Can you imagine any Republican saying that today?
Mr. Romney, instead, chose to speak in code, giving lip
service to "religious liberty," but insisting that faith permeates his life and
emphasizing the commonalities between Mormonism and Christianity, declaring "I
believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and the savior of mankind." He also
stressed the commonalities between all religions but omitted any reference to
Eastern religions and the nonreligious. He even insisted, "Freedom requires
religion," which would seem to indicate nonreligious Americans cannot be
considered "free."
As Maureen Dowd so aptly titled her column in The New York
Times on Sunday, "Mitt is no J.F.K." Ms. Dowd quoted Jon Krakauer, an author of
a bestselling book on Mormonism, as saying, "J.F.K.'s speech was to reassure
Americans that he wasn't a religious fanatic. Mitt's was to tell evangelical
Christians, 'I'm a religious fanatic just like you.'"
Mr. Romney recently told a Christian Science Monitor
reporter he wouldn't favor nominating any qualified Muslims to serve in his
cabinet if he were elected president, noting their small population size. This
would include Zalmay Khalilzad, the current U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations. His spokesperson refused to answer a question about whether Mr. Romney
believes atheists even have a "place in America," after his refusal to
acknowledge them in his speech.
If you give lip service to intolerance, you shouldn't be
shocked if you eventually fall victim to intolerance. Mr. Romney has made a
calculation that he can't be nominated if he says anything tolerant of the two
biggest bogeymen to Republicans: Muslims and atheists. But Mr. Romney should
think hard about what kind of voters he wants to court because, as he is
beginning to figure out, it's not easy to be all things to all people.
Ryan Greenfield (rgreenfield@wisc.edu) is a junior majoring in political science and economics.
Anonymous (December 12, 2007 @ 7:43am):
So, when an oilman (Bush) gets elected, oil more than doubles in price. If Willard Mitt Romney gets elected, should I invest in multiple wives, postmortem baptism or religious undergarments?
Anonymous (December 12, 2007 @ 7:59am):
It appears that you did not either listen to or read Mr. Romney's speech. He directly mentions Muslims, what you call an "eastern religion", and even compliments the Muslims on their habit of frequent prayer ("and the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims"). It would seem to me that if you are majoring in political science, one thing you need to make sure you keep an eye on is accuracy in you analysis and reporting. Obviously, your article is devoid of such accuracy, since the crux of your article is that Mr. Romney ommitted both Muslims and atheists. One out of two's not bad, though?
Anonymous (December 12, 2007 @ 9:39am):
I didn't even read this article. I'm just disappointed it wasn't another Gerald Cox piece.
Anonymous (December 12, 2007 @ 10:06am):
Lets talk about the so called "republican intolerance" that democrats claim exist. Oh, but Romney can't be President because of his religion....hypocritical? What about the fact that democrats refuse to acknowledge the threat from Islamic extremists because that is racist, but Mitt cannot be President because a small sect of his religion are polygamists. Yup, I forgot, free speech is only free when your ideas are the ones being spoken.
Anonymous (December 12, 2007 @ 11:52am):
this is so intolerant of religious people!
mitt's speech was in response to this persecution.
mitt is the only true minority running for either party.
i have a dream that my children will be judged on the content of their character and NOT THE COLOR OF THEIR SKIN.
Anonymous (December 12, 2007 @ 12:06pm):
10:06, you're an idiot. That's not what Democrats say.
7:59, you're also an idiot because that's not what Ryan said. Romney said the word "Mormon" once in his speech and "Muslim" or "jihad" five times. His speech was not to convince the American people that a Mormon could be in the WH -- like JFK's was to convince Americans a Catholic could be. It was, as Maureen Dowd said, to tell us he's a religious fanatic too.
Considering there are as many Muslims in this country as there are Mormons, Romney's excuse not to put any Muslims in his Cabinet because they don't account for enough of the population makes no sense.
What Ryan was trying to say is that we need to cut religion out of this entirely. Since Romney has refused to do this with his comments on Muslims, then why should we take him seriously when he asks us to ignore the fact that he's Mormon?
Anonymous (December 12, 2007 @ 12:09pm):
10:06....Who cares about his religion? Romney can't be president because he's a flip-flopper. You GOPers made it more than clear in 2004 that a flip-flopper must not be elected to the White House. I bet Romney windsurfs too!
Anonymous (December 13, 2007 @ 10:40am):
Its not a flip flop if he changes his position once. I don't want a President who still believes what he believed in HS, its natural that as people mature and learn their points of view will change. Flip-Flopping ala Kerry is when you change your position 5 times during the course of a year or 2 based solely on polls. I dont want my President to do that.
Anonimouse (December 13, 2007 @ 2:50pm):
Jeeesus! When will we finally learn? The only people who should be aloud to rule our country, our land of milk and honey, should be business and profit above the air our children breathe, the value of the labor we spend our lives toiling under, the freedom we have forgotten how to define, and the equality we, especially Reagan, claimed to value. But in order to value all of these things, even in the proper order, which is security above freedom, we must have control. And God, and only our Christian God, has the means of control we require. What do you think we are here? Adults? I think NOT my friends. Let's not forget how dangerous it is to question what we're told.
And dont try to disagree! Im not listening unless you agree.
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