Mitt Romney, Republican Governor of Massachusetts, is running for president. He also happens to be a Mormon. And his religion is becoming an issue in the campaign. In 1960 another Massachusetts politician running for president was having his religion becoming an issue in the campaign. He was a Catholic, and no Catholic had ever been elected president. This politician left the friendly confines of Massachusetts to give a speech in Texas to the Houston Ministerial Association, a group of Protestant Pastors. That speech did seem to diffuse the mistrust of his Catholicism. He eventually went on to win the presidency. That Massachusetts politician was John F. Kennedy.
Mitt Romney has pinned much of his hopes on early primaries and caucuses. He has also entered the race in which none of the initial front-runners in the Republican party appealed to evangelical Christians, a very strong group in the Republican base of Iowa and South Carolina. He has tried his best to appeal to these groups, but they have been resistant and that resistance has stemmed from a large part due to suspicion of his Mormon faith. Instead of supporting Romney, they have gone more for long-shot candidate, Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas and former Baptist Pastor.
Recently Romney took a page from Kennedy's campaign. He went Texas an gave a speech about his religion. In my opinion, Romney is no Kennedy. Let's compare the performances:
First, Kennedy faced his most ardent opponents on their home turf. Romney instead gave his speech before a friendly audience at the George H. W. Bush Library on the campus of Texas A&M University in College Station, TX. Kennedy did not pander to his audience. Romney did.
Romney
America faces a new generation of challenges. Radical violent Islam seeks to destroy us. An emerging China endeavors to surpass our economic leadership. And we're troubled at home by government overspending, overuse of foreign oil, and the breakdown of the family.
Kennedy
While the so-called religious issue is necessarily and properly the chief topic here tonight, I want to emphasize from the outset that we have far more critical issues to face in the 1960 election: the spread of Communist influence, until it now festers 90 miles off the coast of Florida; the humiliating treatment of our president and vice president by those who no longer respect our power; the hungry children I saw in West Virginia; the old people who cannot pay their doctor bills; the families forced to give up their farms; an America with too many slums, with too few schools, and too late to the moon and outer space.
Note that both Romney and Kennedy start by talking about problems facing the country. Romney's problem list includes issues that are specifically worded to appeal to evangelical Christians ... Radical Islam, breakdown of family. Kennedy on the other hand, discusses problems that affect the nation as a whole. These are problems that Kennedy would talk about all over the country throughout the campaign.
In fact, here is Kennedy's next paragraph.
These are the real issues which should decide this campaign. And they are not religious issues — for war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers.
Romney on religion in America:
There are some who may feel that religion is not a matter to be seriously considered in the context of the weighty threats that face us. If so, they are at odds with the nation's founders, for they, when our nation faced its greatest peril, sought the blessings of the Creator. And further, they discovered the essential connection between the survival of a free land and the protection of religious freedom. In John Adams' words: "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. ... Our Constitution," he said, "was made for a moral and religious people."Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.
Excuse me??? "Freedom requires religion ..." It is the secular aspects of this country that are the basis of our freedoms, not religious. Name one theocracy in which the people are allowed the freedoms we are. There has never been one and there will never be. Simply because when religion is granted political power it will promote its own agenda which WILL restrict our liberties.
Our founding fathers knew this and that is why they put in the Constitution the language of separation of Church and State (such as the prohibition against making laws promoting or hindering religious expression and prohibitions on required religious oaths for office).
Kennedy on religion in American:
I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.
While these words of Kennedy are designed to allay the fears of Protestants that the Pope would be the de-facto president, it also strongly affirms the Constitutional intent of separation of Church and State. I think that is a very brave thing to say to a group of Protestant ministers, unlike the blatant pandering of Romney.
Romney DOES recognize that there is a danger of theocratic abuse. But he doesn't recognize that it could occur in Christianity:
Infinitely worse is the other extreme, the creed of conversion by conquest: violent jihad, murder as martyrdom, killing Christians, Jews, and Muslims with equal indifference. These radical Islamists do their preaching not by reason or example, but in the coercion of minds and the shedding of blood. We face no greater danger today than theocratic tyranny, and the boundless suffering these states and groups could inflict if given the chance.
Romney apparently thinks "theocratic tyranny" is solely a part of those "violent jihad[ists]". Our founding fathers, most of whom were some variety of Christian, realized that even within Christianity there was an inherent danger of theocratic abuse.
Thomas Jefferson
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
Benjamin Franklin
If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Romish church, but practiced it upon the Puritans. These found it wrong in the Bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here
James Madison
An alliance or coalition between Government and religion cannot be too carefully guarded against......Every new and successful example therefore of a PERFECT SEPARATION between ecclesiastical and civil matters is of importance........religion and government will exist in greater purity, without (rather) than with the aid of government
George Washington
If I could conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded, that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.
Romney DOES use the founding fathers as a source for his religious polemic, but does so poorly:
Recall the early days of the first Continental Congress in Philadelphia, during the fall of 1774. With Boston occupied by British troops, there were rumors of imminent hostilities and fears of an impending war. In this time of peril, someone suggested that they pray. But there were objections. "They were too divided in religious sentiment," what with Episcopalians and Quakers, Anabaptists and Congregationalists, Presbyterians and Catholics.Then Sam Adams rose, and said he would hear a prayer from anyone of piety and good character, as long as they were a patriot.
And so together they prayed, and together they fought, and together, by the grace of God, they founded this great nation.
Actually this was a very cynical attempt on the part of Samuel Adams to manipulate the religious sensibilities of the members of the Continental Congress. There was not only were the people divided in their religious beliefs they were also divided in their political beliefs. By all appearances this episode was staged by Adams. The "objections" came from his friends John Jay and Edward Rutledge. Adams quickly chimed in and suggested that the Reverend Jacob Duche should lead the prayer. Duche was a popular Episcopalian preacher in New York who evidently gave a wonderful prayer. This helped give Adams the support of Episcopalians.
Duche was made Chaplian of the Continental Congress, for which he served for two years, resigning in October, 1776. His reason ... he decided it was right to remain loyal to the British after all. ... sort of takes away from the togetherness in adversity inspired by prayer, doesn't it?
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Links
Text of Letter from Rev. Jacob Duche to George Washington Urging Cessation of War
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Cheers,
Darwin's Beagle
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totally agree....mr. romney can't claim that he would put the country/consitution before his faith (mormanism) and than in the same speeches said that metaphortically that there is no wall between seperation of church and faith.
Freedom does not require religion. In my opinion, it's the exact opposite. You can't be truly free without critical thinking abilities outside the shackles of organized religion.
This entire speech disgusted me to the point of physical illness.
Catholics don't practice polygamy, not to say that Romney does (I'm actually a Romney supporter), but there are definately still Mormons that practice it. That's probably the biggest biff people have with his religion.