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Friday December 14, 2007

Religion and politics should not mix

In this election cycle, it seems candidates for commander-in-chief also have been running for pastor-in-chief.

Republican and Democratic candidates have consistently injected religion into their campaign discourse, none more strikingly than Republican candidate Mitt Romney in his recent speech about his Mormonism and the role of religion in public life.

As members of a religious minority, Jews can’t help but pay attention when such matters –– and speeches –– arise.

Romney’s speech drew much positive response. Some compared his remarks to John Kennedy’s famous campaign speech addressing his Catholicism. At first blush the comparison makes sense. After all, Romney’s Mormonism is reportedly a deal-breaker for some Christian voters, who view his faith as apostasy, and he needed to assuage his party’s base.

But is the comparison truly an apt one? We think not.

Kennedy’s 1960 speech was intended to reassure the nation that his Catholicism would have no bearing on his decision making as president.

He stated 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, 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.”

That is not the America Romney described in his speech.

Although he wisely echoed Kennedy by saying no authorities from his church would exert influence on presidential decisions, Romney blurred the line between church and state.

His most quoted line, “Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom,” raises troubling questions. The framers believed no such thing when it came to the Constitution and the public sphere.

When Romney added, “Any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty has a friend and ally in me,” he left out millions of nonbelievers, who are Americans too.

We do not mean to criticize Romney personally. He is a good man, and we respect his courage for speaking out. Moreover, as Jews, we know what it’s like to face prejudice, much as Mormons have for more than 150 years.

But we cannot agree that this is a nation only for the religious, nor that freedom requires religion. Romney’s language is code for a creeping theocratic approach to governance, something Jews can never countenance.

No minority faith is safe when the state takes on the tenor of a religious majority. That’s not just a slippery slope, it’s a cliff.

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