Romneypalooza

Boy, I dunno Rod, re: Mark's comments. Mark's a man I really trust on such issues, and he seems to have articulated things I was feeling while I was reading Romney's speech, particularly regarding what I felt was pandering to that most useless and vapid of entities, American civil religion. Maybe I'm too much of an intellectual, but I thought Romney could have articulated more thoughtful, coherent view on the relationship of one's faith to one's exercise of office.

On the one hand, the speech seems to strike many of the right notes. There's the somewhat subtle "us against them" tone as Romney reaches out to religious conservatives and appears to define secularism as the enemy; there's the simultaneous reminder that Americans find theological debates both tiresome and unfair as applied to presidential politics; there's the genuflection in the direction of JFK which was pretty well expected, and in fact has come up in Romney's campaigning even back when he was running for governor of Massachusetts. So I can see Buchanan's point: the speech, as a speech, did exactly what it was supposed to do, and may be a turning point for Romney especially in regard to Evangelicals.

On the other hand, it's easy to see Mark Shea's point too. Though Romney states a disagreement with the notion that one's religious views should be kept private, it then seems that he intends to reassure American voters that his views will remain exactly that: private. Granted, as Rod points out, it's pretty hard to articulate what's wrong with that; certainly no one wants a president who believes that his religious faith ever trumps the law, right?

The problem with this notion is that things have swung pretty far the other way, so that no one expects the law to be restrained even from injustices of the most egregious kind by a shared moral vision, something Americans no longer have. When Catholics can justify torture and Episcopalians seek civil marriage rights for gay couples, when "moderates" of all faiths condone abortion and programs to make sure high school girls are on the Pill, when even people who pretend to take their faith in Christ seriously ignore most of His teachings against the love of money and the pursuit of wealth, there is no longer a basis to believe that any president will be able to tap into some kind of uniquely American ethics system as he makes his decisions. For better or worse, then, he will be formed by his specific religious faith or lack thereof, and the man who tells me he won't be so formed is either lukewarm in his religious faith or lying to me or both.

Now, whether a lukewarm believer or a liar can still be a good--no, wait, an adequate--president is still open for debate. We no longer have the expectation that any person of real integrity would either want the job, or be capable of surviving the two-party primary process. Our last few presidents have given us examples of the sort of job people without much integrity can do as leaders of this country, and I'd say the record is mixed, at best; but I can't imagine the situation ever improving, and it's been a question ever since Machiavelli whether integrity isn't in the end a luxury a leader simply can't afford.

This isn't exactly on topic, but I think that a politician's religious beliefs or lack of them are only relevant as far as they affect policy.

The extreme cases are obvious:
1. I wouldn't vote for anyone who wants to impose Sharia, i.e. a Muslim.
2. I wouldn't vote for anyone who ties the Christian apocalypse doctrine into current world events, especially with respect to the Middle East, as I would suspect him of wanting to cause nuclear war.
3. I wouldn't vote for anyone who prioritises the aggrandisement of Israel over pragmatic foreign-policy concerns. Therefore, I would not vote for a practising Jew, or for a certain type of evangelical.

The marginal cases are more to do with the degree to which one's personal values about sexuality, the family, society, etc., are likely to impinge upon one's policies. These points apply to secularists as well as to religious people. On the one hand, I would feel uncomfortable about an extreme Catholic having a say in decisions about contraception. On the other hand, I would feel uncomfortable about a multiply-divorced anti-family atheist making fiscal decisions affecting family life. In neither case would I necessarily not vote for those candidates, however.

**The phrase "you can't legislate morality" is, then, simply wrong. What those who use it really mean to say is "the law is a poor instrument with which to change people's hearts."**

This is why this liberal reads and contributes to CC despite the vitriolic attacks from the right (and, recently, the left). You (and Huck) have given me something to think about regarding when I, and other, liberals, facilely use that phrase. Thanks.

OTOH ...

I would have a lot more confidence in conservatives' actual belief that "the law is a poor instrument" if they weren't so orgasmic about the Supreme Court legislating from the bench ... well, you know.

The original first set of Christians followed the Gospel (Evangel) over secular/pagan laws where those secular/pagan laws opposed the Gospel.

It IS what a "Christian" does.

I would have a lot more confidence in conservatives' actual belief that "the law is a poor instrument" if they weren't so orgasmic about the Supreme Court legislating from the bench

Larry Parker - apropos your point, there was this interesting exchange from "First Things":

www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=424

www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=469

...regarding judicial imposition of an abortion ban via creative interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Arguing _against_ such judicial activism: Robert Bork (!).

If FT's letters section (second link) is even partly representative of prolifers as a whole, then it would appear that much of the talk about "originalism", "constitutional fidelity", "strict construction", etc. is merely a stalking horse. More's the pity.

Buchanan's praise of the Romney speech may be attributable, in part, to the fact that his sister Bay, who is also his chief political sidekick, is a convert to Mormonism.

Erin,
You really should think about starting your own blog... I'd read you!

Victor,
But I don't think that was really the purpose of the speech.
No, the purpose of the speech was to pass America's de facto religious test for public office.

Victor, I realize what you're saying; I may be guilty of parsing this too closely. But my question to Romney would be, what is the point of religious authority over men, if the men over whom it is exercised have no difficulty saying they will not be subject to it in their public lives?

Clearly, we wouldn't want the Mormon Church (or any other church, for that matter)to be called and consulted on each presidential decision. But does anyone who has raised questions about Romney's faith actually believe that will happen? It's a strawman, isn't it?

What some people are asking Romney is whether or not his personal faith and membership in the Mormon Church should be cause for concern to voters. I deplore the fact that the question got raised at all, but Romney's answer is cut from the Kennedy cloth, and means about as little as Kennedy's answer did.

If Kennedy had been an honest man and not a politician, he would have said that as he was too bad a Catholic to let the Church's laws and beliefs, particularly in the area of morality, influence his own personal life, there was no need for voters to worry that he'd ever take orders from Rome when it came to American policy; but he would also have insisted that any religion worthy of the name would never desire, permit, or allow its adherents to act in so egregiously a dishonest, disingenuous, or deceitful manner as to seek public office as a means to allow that religion to gain secular control.

Romney could have said that, and could further have explained that his faith is important enough to him to make it imperative for him to defend it against so baseless a charge. He could have made it clear that his views of morality were certainly shaped by the teachings of his church, as all the other candidates' views have been shaped by their own faith or moral traditions, but that to require or even see as desirable that any candidate for public office openly reject his church's teachings or distance himself from its moral leadership as a prerequisite for public office should be repugnant to any free people.

Why is this different from what he actually did say? Because in a way he's playing the secular game: he's not addressing the question of whether or not religions actually seek to "control" their members, but insisting that he won't be so "controlled." While he did insist that he would not distance himself from his church, a part of the speech I liked, he also insisted that his church's authority ended where the affairs of the nation did.

And that's where I see him as saying that he'll keep his faith private. It's simply not possible for a religious believer to make such a promise, and nor should we have to. If the "affairs of the nation" have clear moral aspects, and if our church in its teaching authority takes a strong position on one side of the issue or the other, the religious believer has a duty to form his conscience correctly on the issue and to work and act publicly out of this moral conviction.

Now, of course, a religious believer can't unilaterally violate the law out of deeply-held moral and religious convictions, even when the law is unjust and evil. Should he choose to violate the law he will accept the penalty of the law for doing so. But Teddy Roosevelt didn't call the presidency a "bully pulpit" for nothing; the president will influence public policy, and to the extent his faith influences him he can't claim that his faith will have nothing to do with the affairs of the nation.

Frankly, I'm getting tired of religious people having to insist ad infinitum that our churches don't exist to force us to do their (evil?) bidding in the secular world. It's high time some religious believer running for public office took the high road and said, "Look, to the extent that this country tries to pass unjust and evil laws my conscience is going to oppose those things, because I am a believer. But I utterly reject the notion that churches are agencies of mind-control attempting some silly secularist's notion of theocracy-establishment on the sly, because it's not true and never has been."

Of course, it's not secularists who are causing trouble for Romney, it's Evangelicals and fundamentalists. Ironic that the most religiously-motivated voters who are the most suspicious of someone who doesn't share their beliefs.

octopus,
Maybe... but I don't believe that an avowed non-monotheist could ever become President; it would be political suicide for either party to try.

But my question to Romney would be, what is the point of religious authority over men, if the men over whom it is exercised have no difficulty saying they will not be subject to it in their public lives?

What is the point of secular authority over men if the men over whom it is exercise have no difficulty saying they will not be subject to it in their spiritual lives?

It's no wonder liberals didn't trust Bork, given those who (then) supported him, when he said those things at the 1987 Supreme Court nomination hearings.

Let me get this straight, Larry:

You're saying that since Bork is now being criticized by a handful of people on the RIGHT because it's clear that he really means what he said about the 14th Amendment ... that proves that the LEFT was justified in suspecting that Bork did not mean what he said.

I will never understand the left wing mind.

Simon:

Hey, you judge me by the people you think agree with me ... why not?

Law is not just about morality. Some laws fall more squarely into that category than others, of course, but a great deal of laws are dedicated to safety and/or preserving order. Traffic laws are a good example. There is nothing MORALLY WRONG with driving on the wrong side of the street, or speeding. But it is unsafe, and could cause injuries, so both are outlawed.

Many other laws are simply cultural in nature, and not necessarily moral OR safety-enforcing. (Discreet) public urination, for instance, might be perfectly acceptable in rural areas and undeveloped countries. But in developed areas and some conservative societies, such behavior is outlawed.

At any rate, the basis of law is complex. This is why U.S. Soldiers are indoctrinated very early on in training that they are required to disobey both UNLAWFUL and IMMORAL orders. It perfectly possible for something immoral to become lawful - it has happened time and again in supposedly civilized societies. It is a soldier's duty to disobey an immoral order, fully understanding they may face the full legal consequences of such an action. "I was just following orders," is not a defensible stance.

I want a president that believes in sci-fi doctrines and would legalize polygamy in a heartbeat if he could?

Me either.