Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Should a Candidate's Religion Matter?

Since Romney has emerged as the early, early front-runner for the GOP nomination, and then Huntsman joined him, the issue of a candidate’s religion is being discussed again.  Should it matter?  I’ve heard several pundits sigh in weary surprise that it seems to in an America that elected Obama.  I guess religion is no more a choice than race, and no more determinative of views, agendas, and character in their eyes.  Of course, those opposed to marriage equality still view homosexuality as a choice that connotes an agenda…

The truth is that for many of us, religion is not much more a choice as cultural background.  We may choose whether or not to continue participating, but it does influence who we are and how we engage the world.  As such, it seems to me that it’s fair to consider.  I would expect any Jewish candidate’s perspective on Israel and Palestine to be fair game in considering whether to support them or not.  Any candidate’s view on this question would be relevant, but a Jewish candidate’s background and commitments beg the question in a different way.  I think it is fair to ask catholic candidates how and to what degree they are influenced by church teaching, how and to what degree it shapes their policy perspectives, and how they view papal authority.  I think an observant Muslim candidate (fat chance, I know) should indeed address how their faith informs their thinking.  No more and no less so than with an evangelical candidate.  The problem seems to be when people judge candidates according to assumptions about their faith and its influence.  But it’s a fair question.

Mormonism is an aggressively missionizing religion.  Just like Jehovah’s Witnesses and evangelicals.  That in and of itself raises questions.  I don’t support the organized, institutional recruitment that is part of these door knocking religions.  My first question to door-knockers who show up at my home is: How is your koine Greek and western Aramaic?  When they inevitably cannot read a word of either, I ask them whether they would attend an undergraduate course on Homer with a professor who cannot read attic Greek?  Would they read Dante with a professor who didn’t know Italian or Pushkin with someone who was unversed in Russian?  The point is that these people represent institutions who claim authority and truth based on their doctrine, not their knowledge.  So, yes, I want to hear from any candidate of a proselytizing faith how that informs their perspectives on law and on historiography.  How does it inform their perspectives on sexuality and reproduction?  How does it inform their approach to poverty and human rights?  How does it affect their perspectives on other belief systems and cultures?  And if they think we are moving toward an imminent historically consummating encounter with divine justice, I cannot support them.

So yes, religion matters.  It matters in a different way than race or class or geography.  Some of the recent conversations in the public sphere suggest that this is bigotry.  But it’s only bigotry to make a decision without asking the questions.  

So what do the Moose think?  Is crotchety old Strum a bigot?


12 comments

  1. Kysen

    I think that anyone who has ANY belief structure (religious or otherwise) that might lend to ‘loyalty’ or ‘fealty’ to another group/faith/institution ABOVE the office of the Presidency and the people of America ought be dismissed from consideration.

    I would have (and have had) a problem with an evangelical christian as the head of our nation. Would pretty much have a problem with a ‘hardline’ member of any faith (Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, you name it)…because as a hardliner, their belief that they (and others of their faith) are so completely right..and everyone else is so completely wrong…would lead to them making faith based decisions on how to run the country.

    That scares me…no matter the faith.

    I honestly don’t see a Mormon in any lesser light than an evangelical Christian.

    I probably am not explaining myself well..but, don’t have the brain power the moment to expound upon it.

    net-net? I don’t think crotchety old Strum is a bigot.

  2. fogiv

    for my part, a candidate’s religious beliefs matter only to the extent that those beliefs affect their views and decisions. that said, I think it’s pretty tough to truly know any particular candidate’s true beliefs, much less their actual piety. Seems to me that religion in the political sphere is mostly pageantry in that it’s all greatly magnified and exaggerated beyond reality. Like a clown’s giant shoes, it’s just part of the costume.

  3. HappyinVT

    is no requirement for public office.  How naive of me.  

    I’m with fog on this; it only matters as far as how one uses his/her religion to create policy or positions.  I’m less concerned about whether someone is Jewish, Baptist, Evangelical, or atheist than I am about how those beliefs will play out.

    Having said all that, I do cringe when I hear candidates say that God told him/her to run or not run.

  4. It is a consideration for me.

    I like Huckabee as a person, for example, but I have a hard time seeing past his belief that the God of Gods is coming to burn the 6,000-year-old earth in fire. Soon. It overwhelms his positions so much that I have a hard time seeing past it to what else he believes.

    3% of surveyed respondents (consistently, cross-culturally for nearly 100 years) say they would kill another person if God Himself told them to. I don’t want those people to ever be in power, and they are all religious by definition.

    As Fog said, it matters to me in how it effects their positions. In some cases it would make me like them more – in some cases less – depending on what those effects were in their personal lives and views.

    For social reasons I am predisposed in the current era to have a positive lean towards someone who is not a mainstream

    Christian. Christians should have every right and as much chance of being elected President as anyone else, but not moreso. Currently it is an entry-level requirement.

    I  currently do not have the right to run for President. The most qualified Jewish/Buddhist/Muslim/Hindu/… Americans are specifically disqualified from holding the office of President in this country.

    You want to talk disenfranchised? It is against the law in America for my children to run for President, ever. (the laws of physics and reality)

    The best thing about Mittens is that most Christians think he isn’t one (though he is, and more than most of them). Someone needs to break the mold.

  5. Inoljt

    Certainly not in the case of Mitt Romney.

    The only reason that some Democrats are asking this question is because Mitt Romney is a Mormon, and his Mormonism is an electoral liability. Frankly, I believe that the whispering game against Mitt Romney is very similar to the same whispering game that JFK’s opponents played against his Catholicism. It’s the same whispering game that conservatives today play against Muslims.

    If you truly believe that Mitt Romney’s Mormonism makes it so that he shouldn’t be elected, then you should believe the same thing about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Somehow, however, I doubt many Democrats are willing to disown a fellow Mormon Democrat as easily as a Mormon Republican.

    The Democratic Party is better than this. It’s the party of tolerance and diversity. Let’s not fall into the same trap that the Republican Party too often falls into.

  6. I’m not going to rehearse the old debates about public office and private faith, separation of church and state and all that palaver, ’cause you all know it as well as I do.

    There was a long running troll on Dkos recently, a kind of zealous atheist, who wasted much bandwidth (and useful donuts) by attacking all religions for their incredulity, and any believer for dogma and bigotry. Suffice to say he did it with such dogmatic bigotry himself he acheived the rare feat of getting avowed atheists, and disavowing sceptics, to race to the defence of believers.

    His point was that religion is – unlike race, gender or sexual orientation – a matter of choice and education.

    My question is this: where does religion become so deeply embedded in the identity that it becomes almost as difficult to distinguish as race or gender or sexual orientation.

    You’d know better than I grumpy Strum, but the history of anti-semitism is much bigger than a dislike of Judaism. Of course Judaism does present some tricky cross overs between belief and ethnicity, but I’m pretty sure the attacks on Muslims in Europe are partially against conceptions (and misconceptions) about Islam, but also irreducibly combined with other cultural or ethnic hatreds, mainly because most Muslims in Europe are brown. Certainly a lot of fire goes out the Islamophobes when I try to get them to talk of Bosnians or Kosovars.

    So just as you’re worried about the role religion may play in a politician’s background (and I agree with you on that) I’d also say that the bigotry towards different faiths is often smuggling other aversions through the back door.  

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