Former Arkansas Governor and Baptist minister Mike Huckabee is a Republican presidential candidate who takes his faith seriously. On Meet the Press, the governor told host Tim Russert:

I’m appalled, Tim, when someone says, “Tell me about your faith,” and they say, “Oh, my faith doesn’t influence my public policy.” Because when someone says that, it’s as if they’re saying, “My faith isn’t significant, it’s not authentic, it’s not so consequential that it affects me.” Well, truthfully ... my faith does affect me.

Russert then pressed Huckabee about his participation in a “Reclaiming America for Christ” conference and questioned him about his statement  “I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ.” Huckabee replied:

Well, I think I—I’d probably phrase it a little differently today. But I don’t want to make people think that I’m going to replace the Capitol dome with a steeple or change the legislative sessions for prayer meetings. What it does mean is that people of faith do need to exercise their sense of responsibility toward education, toward health, toward the environment. All of those issues, for me, are driven by my sense that this is a wonderful world that God’s made, we’re responsible for taking care of it. We’re responsible for being responsible managers and stewards of it. I think that’s what faith ought to do in our lives if we’re in public service.

The governor’s response suggests two important claims about the role of religion in American politics. The first assertion—that the governor is not “going to replace the Capitol dome with a steeple or change the legislative sessions for prayer meetings”—is uncontroversial. A government-sponsored religion strikes at the core of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which at least prohibits placing the federal government in the hands of one church or abolishing legislation in favor of worship. The Establishment Clause also forbids governmental coercion of religious belief; in Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s words, the “government may not coerce anyone to support or participate in any religion or its exercise.”  Huckabee subscribes to that principle; when he was asked in an NPR interview about the “reclaiming” language, he replied, “To reclaim a nation for Christ doesn't mean that we would coerce people to be of a particular faith.” 

In the second part of his answer, however, Governor Huckabee pledged to base his presidential policies on his religious faith. People of faith, he believes, need to enact their faith into good public policies and in that sense reclaim America.  Because of his faith, for example, the governor is broadly pro-life, not only opposing abortion but supporting medical insurance, good schools, safe neighborhoods and affordable housing for children. He supports the teaching of creationism and opposes gay marriage, all policies that are grounded in his biblical Christian faith.

These may be good policies, but not because of their biblical roots. The Bible is not the appropriate basis of public policy; it is a particular religious text to which non-Christians are not bound. Basing public policy on the Bible, or on any article of religious faith, is another form of coercion; it forces citizens to live by a religion that they do not believe. When presidents govern according to their faith, they impose religion on their fellow citizens of different faiths or no faith. This violates the spirit of the Establishment Clause, which requires a government of law and not religion.

Governor Huckabee promises on his campaign website to appoint judges who “decide the cases before them using the Constitution, legislative Acts, and precedent.” Presidents, too, should base their decisions on the Constitution and laws of the United States. The Constitution’s requirements are different from the Bible’s; where is the biblical Second, or Fourth, or Fourteenth Amendment, for example?  The governor, however, believes that the Constitution is based upon the Bible and is consistent with it. To his critics who oppose a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, he says:
 

Here's what I don't understand. For those who say we shouldn't amend the Constitution, they seem to be more than willing to amend the Holy Bible,  … the Koran, as well as the Talmud. I'm not sure why we would take a sacred Biblical text and amend it and not be willing to amend the Constitution  … to be consistent with the very texts upon which that Constitution was based. (Conservative Political Action Conference speech, March 2, 2007).

Amend the Constitution to be consistent with the Bible? For a “government [that] may not coerce anyone to support or participate in any religion or its exercise,” that idea should be as unacceptable as replacing the Capitol dome with a steeple or changing  the legislative sessions for prayer meetings.