Romney’s America: No Room for Non-Believers

I consider both Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee to be serious threats to freedom of (and from) religion for US citizens with differing faiths and/or levels of belief. It seems that these men and Christianists like them are incapable of grasping the concept that freedom of religion means THEY CANNOT FORCE THEIR BELIEFS ON OTHERS. This inability to understand this critical concept shows both to be utterly unfit to hold the office of President of the United States. They and those like them are a clear and present danger to the Constitution. Why more Americans cannot open their eyes and see this is most disturbing. Ryan Sager has an interesting take on Romney following his speech about his Mormon beliefs yesterday(http://www.ryansager.com/blog/index.php/2007/12/06/romneys-america-no-room-for-non-believers/) Here are some highlights:

In short, if we didn’t know it before, we now know that in Mitt Romney’s America, there is no room for those without “faith.” What’s more — and this we already did know — Mitt Romney is willing to mislead people about his religion, while categorizing all follow-up questions about his religion as a form of “religious test.” The most remarkable thing about Romney’s address — and even folks at National Review picked this out, notably Ramesh Ponnuru — is that is wrote atheists and agnostics out of the American nation.

Got that? Those of us who don’t believe in Christianity, those of us who don’t believe in God, those of us who don’t believe in the divinity of human-written holy books have no place in the American experiment, can’t be relied on to uphold the principles of our Constitution, and don’t have the morality necessary to keep a Republic. Marginalizing non-believers is too central to Romney’s primary strategy for him to speak one word on their behalf. Romney may say that, “A President must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States.” But his vision of who constitutes “the people” includes only the faithful.

As to Romney’s disingenuousness about his own religion, one need only note that the word “Mormon” appeared but once in his speech. (Kennedy mentioned the word Catholic roughly 20 times.) What’s more, he pulled this little number. On the one hand, he declared: There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church’s distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution. No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes President he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths.

There was at least one line from Romney, though, that was worth the price of admission: “Americans do not respect believers of convenience.”