Romney and Religion

"Mitt Romney's religion keeps coming up on the presidential campaign trail. He seems, at times, a little annoyed that this is the case. I am, too. Any American or admirer of the constitutional system would also be.

"Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That fact alone could keep commentators in business. 'Are they Christians?' 'Was the Garden of Eden really in Missouri?' 'And about the undergarments . . . '

"What all these questions have in common is that they have nothing to do with the presidency of the United States. . . .

"We have no established religion, and we have no religious tests in our constitutional system. Romney's religion is a topic for religious conferences, not for talk shows. And it certainly should not keep a man from the White House. An early November poll from the Wall Street Journal/NBC indicated that only 38 percent of respondents thought America is ready for a Mormon president. But this race has not gone national yet, and once the American people get the chance to meet Romney, they will see him as the qualified candidate with executive experience that he is."

On that very subject:

"Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said yesterday that he hopes to convince voters that his Mormon faith is mainstream.

" 'I think as people come to know my faith they'll recognize that the values of my faith are -- they very much flow from the Judeo-Christian tradition of this country. I believe in God, I believe in Jesus Christ, I believe in the equality of all humankind,' Mr. Romney said in an interview with The Washington Times."

Here's an interesting example of the slippery slope. Writing in the Christian Science Monitor, Mansoor Ijaz, an American-born member of the Islamic faith, charges that Romney "demonstrated an aggravating hypocrisy in his reply to my query on one of his key foreign policy positions. It's a stance that should give pause to all Americans who are considering voting for him.

"I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that 'jihadism' is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, ' . . . based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration.'

"Romney, whose Mormon faith has become the subject of heated debate in Republican caucuses, wants America to be blind to his religious beliefs and judge him on merit instead. Yet he seems to accept excluding Muslims because of their religion, claiming they're too much of a minority for a post in high-level policymaking. More ironic, that Islamic heritage is what qualifies them to best engage America's Arab and Muslim communities and to help deter Islamist threats."

By the way, says Captain Ed, the Monitor should have disclosed that Ijaz is a big-time Democratic donor. And he's right.

Romney's unusual answer draws flak from Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum: