The religious test for public office

For the record, I do not believe, as a theological matter, that Mormons are Christians. I also believe that the moral ideals Mormons live by are exemplary. For me, knowing that a candidate is a Mormon makes me slightly more likely to vote for him, because chances are if he takes his faith seriously, he is likely to arrive at the same policy conclusions that I arrive at. In the end, though, it really doesn't matter to me whether or not my president calls himself a Christian. I want to know if he shares my political convictions, and is a man of moral integrity and good judgment -- in other words, if I can trust him to govern wisely and well.

I'm not planning to vote for Mitt Romney in the primaries for those reasons. His Mormonism matters not one whit to me. I'd feel exactly the same way if he were a faithful Eastern Orthodox Christian.

That said, I continue to be perplexed by something I keep hearing over and over from Christians who won't vote for Romney because he's a Mormon. It goes something like, "If a man will believe the kinds of things Mormonism teaches, what won't he believe?" If believing in peculiar religious doctrines disqualifies one from public office, why on earth would a secularist, a Jew, a Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist vote for a Christian candidate?

Lookit, we Christians believe that the infinite, eternal God entered into time and finitude to incarnate as a man, and that after his murder, that man arose from the dead, ascended to heaven, and the eternal fate of every living soul depends on that event. Many of us Christians believe that whenever the right person among our number pronounces certain prayers under certain conditions, that that same God-man mystically presents himself in a real (not symbolic) way, in the consecrated wine and bread. That is, we eat our god.

I believe all these things. I really do. But think how this looks to non-Christians. Probably about as weird as Mormon doctrines look to Christians. If we say we wouldn't vote for Romney because he holds bizarre religious convictions, and we therefore can't trust his judgment, how could we expect a non-Christian to be fair-minded in considering a Christian for public office? You know?

Along those lines, I share Mike Huckabee's irritation with the fact that he's constantly being asked about his lack of belief in evolution. He's said over and over again that he doesn't believe in it, but that it doesn't have a thing to do with governing as president, in part because education policy is set at the state level. I believe him, but that's not what this question is about. It's a cultural marker. It's a secularist religious test for public office, the liberal's excuse for saying, "I can't vote for Huckabee because a man who won't believe in evolution, his judgment is fatally flawed."

How can Christians be offended, or at least irritated, on Huck's behalf re: the evolution question, yet maintain that Romney's judgment is unreliable because of his Mormon beliefs?