Posted by Damozel | UPDATE. Governor Romney made a very nice speech, I thought. Obviously, I wasn't listening closely enough. Others who were listening more closely were deeply offended by the part of it that didn't give the same weight as JFK did to the right of Americans to choose no religion. At The Washington Monthly, Kevin Drum writes:
.If you're going to give a speech about how people shouldn't reject you for your religious beliefs, it's only natural that most of the speech is going to be about religious beliefs. But when JFK gave his famous speech in 1960 addressing fears that he'd be under the thumb of the Vatican, he at least threw out this bone:
I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end — where all men and all churches are treated as equal — where every man has the same right to attend or not to attend the church of his choice.
Italics mine. Compare this to Mitt Romney's deeply offensive speech this morning addressing fears of his Mormon faith:
Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom....Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.
....Whether it was the cause of abolition, or civil rights, or the right to life itself, no movement of conscience can succeed in America that cannot speak to the convictions of religious people.
....Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our constitution rests.
Etc.
I can't tell you how much this pisses me off. I'm well aware that this is par for the course among Republican politicians these days, and Romney is doing nothing more than engaging in what's become routine conservative disparagement of those of us who aren't religious. But the cowardice and pandering here is just phenomenal. (Political Animal)
My own first reaction follows.
[PREVIOUSLY] Bits of the speech are reprinted here. It makes me laugh out loud to see a Republican trying to rebuild the wall between church and state after the years his party has spent undermining its foundations. The people who flocked to the voting booths because they wanted one nation under ONE God might prove a hard sell on the whole "It shouldn't matter what I believe so long as I'm a man of faith" argument. He's years too late to remove religion as an issue from the GOP primaries; and I'm guessing that the little he said about his own faith will simply raise the gravest doubts in all the inquiring minds out there in the "base". It's an issue for Republican voters because the GOP made it one.
These American values, this great moral heritage, is shared and lived in my religion as it is in yours. I was taught in my home to honor God and love my neighbor. I saw my father march with Martin Luther King. I saw my parents provide compassionate care to others, in personal ways to people nearby, and in just as consequential ways in leading national volunteer movements. ("Excerpts Of Governor Romney's "Faith In America" Address via Memeorandum) [Update 12-21: He didn't actually "see" this because it apparently never happened. (msnbc )]
I always kind of liked old George Romney, even back when I was a prematurely politicized child of eleven. Back in 1968, the Republicans failed to give the nomination to a (by the standards that apply in politics) good Republican with a proper concern for the civil rights of others and handed it to a Quaker-in-name-only, Richard Nixon. But of course, back in those days, people really didn't talk much about religion when they were running for political office. The people I knew who didn't like Romney didn't like him because he was seen as too liberal, not because he was seen as too Mormon. At least that was my father's reason.
In case you've forgotten George Romney or are too young to remember him, this entry from Wikipedia squares pretty well factually with my recollections:
On 31 August 1967, Governor Romney made a statement that ruined his chances for getting the nomination. In a taped interview with Lou Gordon of WKBD-TV in Detroit, Romney stated, "When I came back from Viet Nam [in November 1965], I'd just had the greatest brainwashing that anybody can get." He then shifted to opposing the war: "I no longer believe that it was necessary for us to get involved in South Vietnam to stop Communist aggression in Southeast Asia," he declared. Decrying the "tragic" conflict, he urged "a sound peace in South Vietnam at an early time."
Thus Romney disavowed the war and reversed himself from his earlier stated belief that the war was "morally right and necessary." The connotations of brainwashing following the experiences of the American prisoners of war (highlighted by the 1962 film The Manchurian Candidate) made Romney's comments devastating to his status as the GOP front-runner. The topic of brainwashing quickly became newspaper editorial and television talk show fodder, with Romney bearing the brunt of the topical humor.
Republican Congressman Robert Stafford of Vermont sounded a common concern: "If you're running for the presidency," he asserted, "you are supposed to have too much on the ball to be brainwashed." Romney announced on 18 November 1967, that he had "decided to fight for and win the Republican nomination and election to the Presidency of the United States." He announced his withdrawal as a presidential candidate on 28 February 1968. At his party's national convention in Miami Beach, Romney finished a weak sixth with only fifty votes on the first ballot (44 of Michigan's 48, plus six from Utah).
Afterwards, I always said to myself that it was a shame. He was the best of the best Republicans we had in those days. As a child, I was very much on his side and I wonder now what the world would be like today if he'd got the nomination.
But the daughter is not the father (I became a Democrat) and the son is not the father either, as Mitt Romney has demonstrated time and again. Even so, I think he is the sanest of the Republican candidates (not that this is saying much). I think a lot of what he says and does is sheer posturing, designed to appeal to the idiot portion of the GOP's base.
Should we be probing into Mitt Romney's personal and private beliefs about religion? Speaking as a (lefty) Christian and a firm believer in keeping an impenetrable wall between church and state, I mostly want to say no. But for quite a long time, Republicans have been selling themselves to poor credulous people who don't follow politics closely and don't know any better as "the party of God." People voted for Bush because they believed him when he said that his religious convictions would prompt him to make policy decisions reflecting those convictions----which he has unquestionably, and to the great detriment of conflicting interests, done (see, e.g., the whole embryonic stem cell question).
So, yes, I am concerned about the connection between a Republican candidate's religious faith and the policies he intends to try to implement while in office. They made it an issue; I didn't. And while the particulars of Mormonism---with which I am perhaps more familiar than many non-Mormons---don't concern me, I certainly am concerned about the general policies which flow from them. For example, the role of women in society. Several months ago, I discussed the whole question of the relevance of his religious faith here. I haven't really changed my position on the issue much, though it's also true I haven't given it a lot more thought. For me, Romney has way too many other drawbacks for his religion to affect my decision (that is, if he gets the nomination in the first place).
Do Mormons believe a lot of irrational nonsense? Many people, if informed of the specifics, would say yes. But so do all religious people believe a lot of irrational nonsense, including the religious person currently typing out this post. That is to say, seen from outside, most religious beliefs look like nonsense to those who don't understand their inner truths and such beliefs are by definition irrational. In a country founded on the principle of religious liberty, voters should have the courtesy not to prod the washed up rubble of thousands of years of conflicting superstitions too closely, lest they inadvertently squash one of the Four Horsemen or send the Beast of the Apocalypse scurrying out from under the washed-up detritus as fast as its little legs can carry it. But of course if religion can be used to undermine an opponent, that's what candidates are going to do. Hence the JFK speech, on which Romney based today's appeal to fundamental principles of this country.
If Republicans had not used religion to expand their base, would Governor Romney be in a better position than he is now?
But some scholars and evangelical Christians, who make up a crucial voting bloc in the Republican Party and consider Mormonism to be heretical, say that many voters would like to hear more from Mr. Romney about exactly what he believes, even though he has studiously avoided discussing this except in the broadest terms.
“Most people don’t have a clear understanding of the faith,” said Tamara Scott, executive director of the Iowa chapter of Concerned Women for America, a Christian conservative group. “Really what they would like is maybe a little more explanation.”
Ms. Scott said she was uncertain about what might be accomplished “if he’s not going to express the tenets of his faith.”
The address comes as the religious divide his supporters long feared appears to be emerging in Iowa, where Mr. Romney has seen his lead in the polls evaporate in the face of a vigorous challenge by Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist pastor whose rise has been driven by evangelicals. In recent days, Mr. Huckabee has refused to say whether he believes Mormons are Christians. (New York Times)
I like Mike Huckabee---at least based on what I've seen of him on Real Time---but I'd argue that only Republicans who are voting for him because of his religious beliefs could possibly prefer him to Governor Romney as a Republican candidate.
Which leaves Romney impaled on the horns of a dilemma. If he refuses to speak directly about Mormonism, then he is going to lose those voters. But if he speaks directly about it, he will lose them anyway....and also call the attention of outsiders who aren't that bothered about his religion to certain aspects of it that are really different from conventional Christianity.
When Mr. Romney was asked during an interview in October on CBS News about the teaching by Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, that the Garden of Eden was in Missouri, Mr. Romney said church officials were the ones who should answer such questions.
“You know, they’re probably the right folks to give you the answers to questions related to a bunch of Mormon teachings,” he said. “So I’ll probably let them respond to questions about specific doctrines. But what I can tell you is that the values of my faith are founded on Judeo-Christian principles.” (New York Times)
Yes, that's true. But it's the differences that will matter to the Bible Belters. I know this because I grew up in a South Carolina milltown, where the vast majority of citizens were Southern Baptists who entertained the gravest suspicions of the very few Roman Catholics who had recently moved to town from somewhere in New Jersey with a recently relocated factory.
"They worship Mary," my cousin told me, her eyes like saucers. And my Southern Baptist grandmother explained to me with great disgust the particulars of the doctrine of transubstantiation, not realizing that the Episcopal Church (to which my mother and I belonged) ascribes to the same doctrine. Perhaps religion has matured to some extent---I know people there who like Giuliani---but most of the ones I know are deeply, deeply offended by the notion of any Bible-based faith that uses texts different from their own.
Mind you, if he gets the nomination, it's all going to come out anyway. We've already had the white horse prophecy, courtesy---apparently--- of the Rudy campaign. A You Tube cartoon purporting to portray Mormon cosmology---a creation story not one bit stranger than the Genesis to which W and Mike Huckabee presumably ascribe, may I say--- also went the rounds. And to people who take their Old Testament literally, and without a grain of salt, these beliefs certainly will appear exceeding strange (in the sense of "unfamiliar" and "not what I was always told.")
Getting into specifics is definitely likely to hurt him more than it will help him unless he simply renounces his faith---which I trust he will not do and which wouldn't help him anyway, since he'd just get accused (some more) of being a flip-flopper who will say or do whatever it takes to get elected. Nope, there's just no way that talking more or in greater depth about his religion is going to help him.
So I wonder what Romney will do to reach out to the fundamentalist part of the "base" or if there is anything he can do, now that the GOP has made religion their issue. It makes sense, after all, that Massachusetts (often used as an archetype of liberalism) elected him governor, despite the number of Roman Catholics who live there. That might not help him any, down in the Bible belt where I grew up.
UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt at Town Hall is agog at the magnificence of the speech.
Mitt Romney's "Faith in America" speech was simply magnificent, and anyone who denies it is not to be trusted as an analyst. On every level it was a masterpiece. The staging and Romney's delivery, the eclipse of all other candidates it caused, the domination of the news cycle just prior to the start of absentee voting in New Hampshire on Monday --for all these reasons and more it will be long discussed as a masterpiece of political maneuver. ("A Common Creed Of Moral Convictions")
It was a fine speech. But---once again---hearing a Republican make it just makes me laugh out loud....ruefully. And anyone who doesn't is not to be trusted as an analyst.
RELATED BN-POLITICS LINKS
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Can Romney Take the Religion Out of GOP Politics?
Achenbach on Mike Huckabee, Adam & Eve, and UFOs
Mr. J.Q. Public: Which GOP Candidate Will Keep Us Safe Against the Threat of Illegal Aliens?
Romney's Pick for National Security Adviser Would Torture 'in a Heartbeat.
Salon's Helpful Advice for Log Cabin Republicans: The Illustrated Nutshell version
Romney: Rich Enough to Buy the Presidency?
Giuliani Jabs Romney over Indicted Donor
Romney's Iowa [straw poll] Victory and What It Means.
"Signgate" in Perspective (The Moderate Voice)
UPDATED/REPUBLISHED. Mormon Cosmology: The Cartoon, a Response, and My Own Take on the Controversy.
McCain Harshes on the Varmint Hunter's Immigration Policies.
FROM VERSUS/REVERSUS (Damozel's predecessor blog)
TIME'S ingratiatingly handsome cover guy
Quote of the Day for 9 April 2007. Huckabee: Romney's Vaunted Varmint-Hunting "Major Mistake."
Headline at THE HUFFINGTON POST: "Varmint-Hunter Romney"
Amazing post. I thought Kennedy did a remarkable job in dispelling the fears at that time regarding his catholicsm. But it was pre-vatican II and growing up Catholic I was leery of the "protestants" or publics as my Mother anyone not a Catholic but back to Mitt-Boy. His speech was offensive. He totally discounted all faiths and sects including those that are not associated with organized religion. To me it smacked of wanting a government approved national religion. He didn't score any points with me!
Posted by: Jude | December 08, 2007 at 09:08 PM