I am always leery when religion is inserted into politics, whether we are speaking of JFK and the controversy surrounding his Catholic faith, to Barack Obama and the anchor Rev. Wright conservative commentators hung around his neck, to Sarah Palin;s addition to the McCain ticket for the sole purpose of shoring up the evangelical wing of the Republican party in 2008.
I just don’t believe religion should play a role in the most crucial political decisions we make as a nation. Nonetheless, it always has. No avowed atheist or agnostic has ever been nominated as a major party’s nominee, nor has any Jew. Now we face the reality of Mitt Romney’s Mormon religion being held against him, since he seems to be the most likely GOP candidate to win the nomination of his party.
Frankly I couldn’t care less if he’s a Mormon or a Wiccan or a Pastafarian. His fitness for the presidency should be based on other qualifications than to which God he claims to pray. However, many Mormons, clearly feel that he stands less of a chance of being elected because of his faith rather than his appetite for vulture capitalism. I can’t say I blame them for feeling that way.
One-third of Mormons in the US believe that American voters are not ready to elect Mitt Romney, or any other member of their church, as president.
A survey of adherents to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) released on Thursday found that almost half of Mormons in the US considered themselves more discriminated against than African Americans.
While I don’t think Mormons are as discriminated against as African Americans, they do have a point when it comes to how other other fervent Christians, particularly evangelical protestants view them. A lot of the anti-Romney movement in the GOP race has to do with conservative evangelical Christians lack of trust in him based on his religion. I don’t think it will ultimately hurt him as much this year as it did in his 2008 campaign, but it is still a factor. Only 31% of self-described evangelicals voted for Romney in New Hampshire, which was an improvement over his showing in 2008, but the overall GOP field is much weaker this year, and there is no true evangelical candidate left in the race. Evangelicals are splitting their votes among a number of candidates including Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. One is a staunch (if extremely compassion deprived) conservative Catholic and the other is a three time divorcee and serial philanderer.
Will Romney’s religion be a factor in the general election campaign against Obama? I have to think that yes, it very well may affect voter turnout among some of the more extreme conservative evangelical Christians, though how much of a factor it will prove to be is hard to pinpoint at this time. However, in my opinion his faith or lack thereof should be irrelevant. His record as a Governor of Massachusetts and as a venture capitalist and job destroyer at Bain Capital, and his proposed policies should be much more pertinent to voters. It’s unfortunate we have to even discuss his religion, but then again, considering the vicious and often slanderous attacks Republicans made against Democratic candidates based on religion such as Obama being a “secret Muslim,” it’s hardly surprising to see that Romney’s religious background is one reason for the Romney “enthusiasm gap” among the Republican base (at least at the moment). He’s not really one of them, and a lot of “them” don’t like that fact. How his Mormon faith affects the general election will be interesting to see.
How does the 1 in 3 Mormons who say Romney is unelectable compare to the more than 1 in 2 American’s who would prefer not to see him elected? If a candidate isn’t very popular, it is convenient for his supporters to claim some form of discrimination to explain away the opposition to him. The 31% of self-described evangelicals who voted for him in New Hampshire isn’t all that different from the 39% of all voters who voted for him, and given that Evangelicals are generally on the extreme right of the Republican Party, it isn’t all that surprising that a slightly lower proportion voted for him than in the overall electorate.
I’m not saying that religion isn’t a factor, but that religion effects political ideology and hence candidate selection in any case. Religious people are often more likely to oppose an avoid atheist, secularist, or liberal than they will oppose a religious fanatic from a different religious denomination. Evangelicals are historically very opposed to Catholicism. It didn’t stop them from voting in large numbers in New Hampshire for a Catholic fanatic.
The greater divide is between those of a fundamentalist religious faith and those who oppose direct religious influence in politics: between fundamentalist and liberal approaches to faith in public life.
Wow. Mormons think that they are more discriminated against than AAs? What a joke.
I am an atheistic unitarian. Now THAT is a group that has electoral trouble. It is true that more presidents were Unitarians than any other religion (perhaps Jefferson is counted as a unitarian, although he was a deist). But in today’s world, unitarians are not well-known (despite the efforts of Prairie Home Companion), and no one trusts atheists.
I will say that the jails are filled with Christians, and not so much with atheists.
Mormons think that they are more discriminated against than AAs?
As anyone who grew up LDS or in the parts of the west where they predominate could tell you, Mormons have a towering collective persecution complex. They more or less run several sizable mountain states, a Mormon leads the US Senate, a Mormon is about to take the Republican nomination for president, the church is a massively wealthy and powerful political and social entity, and nobody of any consequence thinks anything more unkind of Mormons than “aren’t those people charmingly odd,” but in the minds of most church members, there’s always a mob of angry Missourians ready to lynch them lurking somewhere just out of sight.
The truth is that you can fill in the blank with just about anything and find that in many if not most voters’ minds it is indeed irrelevant – ballot position and weather conditions probably affect more votes than religion/domestic policy/marital fidelity. People vote like they purchase – based on their feelings, and what affects those emotions will drive their vote. Facts and logic are at best secondary or tertiary – a hat can make the difference between winning and losing (e.g. loser, winner).
I think it was Churchill who said that the best argument against democracy was a 5-minute conversation with the average voter…
JFK, first, last, and only Catholic US president.
And we won’t see another for a while.
Why not? Is it because Catholic Democrats get swift-boated, and Republican Catholics are social extremists?