On Why Religion May Be Used as a Grounds to Exclude Gov. Mit Romney from Consideration as a Presidential Candidate

It is a staple meme in our democratic lexicon: "religion isn't a grounds to exclude a man from public office." Whenever Governor Mitt Romney's Mormonism is raised in these contexts, almost always those discussing the matter will quickly agree, as a matter of principle, that his religion should not disqualify him from office. A moment's reflection will show, however, that citizen's may as a matter of political principle exclude someone from office (at least with their votes) by taking into consideration the religious views of the candidate

Suppose that a candidate were to run for public office who professed a radical wahabi interpretation of Islam. Suppose that the Mosque this public office seeker attends is known for spreading ideas of jihad, terrorism, and the like. In this case, despite the candidate's claims that his religious identity is not a part of his political aspirations, it is plain to see that the candidate's deepest moral and religious commitments are not something that can be ignored in this case, for the religion itself proclaims a certain view that bears upon matters of the public good.

Likewise, Governor Mitt Romney's mormonism may become a ground of exclusion if two conditions are met. First, there are aspects of (Mormonism's) public philosophy (its view with respect of the nature, extent, and justification of the public order) that one find's false or dangerous in as much as it bears upon the public good. Second, unless Romney can show, as a matter of principle, that his political views are "freestanding"--in the sense that they are independently objectively justifiable--from his religion's moral teachings, then we have no reason to accept that his judgments come from any other place than his religion's first principles. And, if he is a man of "integrity", his religious beliefs will inform his public philosophy.

To the extent that citizens may reasonably disagree with one another regarding religion's first principles marks an important feature of pluralistic democracy, namely, that so far from producing consensus on all matters of truth (whether they are moral or political) the free use of reason tends to produce a number of competing "truths"--each with its own internally valid justifications. The usual response is to "tolerate". We tend to "tolerate" each other's religion and look beyond these differences.

In Romney's case, however, citizens may find him hard to swallow precisely because his fundamental beliefs are based on what seem to many to be obvious lies and specious mythologies for which there is little, if any, freestanding support. To the extent that Mormonism cannot offer a public philosophy, independent of its mythological underpinnings, and to the extent that Romney himself is unable to show how he holds a concept of public reason that is independent of his religious beliefs, a citizen is well within their rights--and is enjoined by their duties--to exclude him for the reason that he is a mormon because, after all, he is elected to represent their public reason. If he cannot draw the distinction, then citizens must.

Whether he--or Mormonism--has an answer to this question I honestly do not know. There is an interesting article by Nancy Gibbs of Time magazine here: http://www.faithinpubliclife.org/content/news/2007/05/the_religion_test.html on the phenomenon of Romney's faith and its potential conflict with public life.

In a telling passage, Gibbs writes: "Romney's inspiration going forward may come less from Kennedy than from Dwight Eisenhower, whom Romney reveres to such an extent, he told the Atlantic Monthly, that he asked his grandchildren to call him "Ike" and Ann "Mamie." It was Eisenhower who presided over the first National Prayer Breakfast, saw the addition of "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance and IN GOD WE TRUST to dollar bills, and declared that "our form of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don't care what it is." There has always been a certain virtue in vagueness when it comes to presidential piety, and Eisenhower, a Presbyterian convert raised by Jehovah's Witnesses, benefited from discussing spirituality in the most general terms. Romney has repeatedly said that "I think the American people want a person of faith to lead the country. I don't think Americans care what brand of faith someone has." " (end quote from Gibbs)

The Catholicism that Kennedy represented observed the sharp distinction between the public and the private, the merely religious. This is well described in the social thought of Father John Courtney Murray's We Hold These Truths and is well described in the numerous papal encyclicals of the period before and through the Second Vatican Council. There a principled distinction is made--as it always has been able to do--by appealing to natural law and the rights and liberties of that conception. A principled distinction regarding the intrinsically limited conception of the state to that of the ordre public is maintained.

The question is whether Romney likewise can make explicit a political conception of such a "public order" through an objective "freestanding" conception of the public good and the moral-political decision procedures upon which it depends. In his record as Governor, I think he ran a clean, liberal state that implemented robust health care reforms--just the kind of thing that stewardship of the public order demands. In his record, there are no obviously ham-handed uses of religion to sponsor coercive laws. He may very well have an implicit sense of where to draw the line more akin to knowing how than knowing that. If he wishes to win public support, however, he'll need to make explicit what his ideal of a public person of faith means.

The 30% bloc of religious conservatives that form the base of support of George W. Bush comes, in part, from the Republican revolution of the 90's with its communitarian embrace of Protestant Christianity and the synthesis with supply side laissez faire capitalism. The highly organized and politically motivated character of this bloc command our attention. We have to take seriously these claims to religious freedom (i.e., the freedom to use one's religion as a basis of public policy) made by conservatives, for they are often used to merely rally a base (such as when the bullhorn is placed on gay marriage, abortion, etc.) to support candidates or to sponsor dubious and unjust social allocation of resources (the faith based welfare initiatives) or even to undergird their authority as figures who, having the divine right of God, can go above the international legal and moral order in wars of resource acquisition. Faith based politics is already influencing our country and, perversely, it usually does so for the worse. For these--and two millenia of reasons why--we should no longer give "men of faith" a free pass on their religion. And, contrary to what Romney is quoted as saying ("I think the American people want a person of faith to lead the country. I don't think Americans care what brand of faith that is."), the American people ought to care about what brand of faith the person ruling their country upholds. And because religion has been the object of "toleration" and "non-judgment" in the liberal culture, it often lessens the burden of good reasoning on the shoulders of those who appeal to it. Religion proves to be all too integral to their ideas of right and candidates such as Romney should present how they mean to use religion in their public office to public view--at least insofar as it influences their method of public reasoning. We the people demand it.