The Religion Clauses of the First Amendment provide: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” These two Clauses, the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause, are frequently in tension. Striking a proper balance between free exercise and establishment has been a difficult endeavor for the U.S. Supreme Court, like walking a tightrope. The proper balance is crucial to our system of government, which must protect the right of religious believers to believe in their religion while assuring that those religious convictions are not established or endorsed by the government.

In his remarks about church and state during a recent trip to the United States, Pope Benedict XVI fell off the tightrope, overemphasizing free exercise at the expense of establishment.

The pope understandably believes that his Catholic faith is true, and encourages his fellow Catholics to believe in that truth as well. During his visit, he encouraged the Catholic laity and Catholic educators to pursue the objective truth of the Catholic faith, which transcend[s] the particular and the subjective, [and] points to the universal and absolute. The pope acknowledged that, in the United States, the secular state and separation of church  and state have protected religious freedom. He is correct; the First Amendment vigorously protects the right of Catholics to believe in the truth of their faith and to worship freely.

While offering some praise for American protection of religious freedom, Pope Benedict also expressed numerous doubts about secularism. The pope fears that, in the United States, secularist ideology drives a wedge between truth and faith, and undermines or even rejects transcendent truth. It is at this point of the argument that the pope’s commitment to religious truth leads him astray. The pope believes that, because Catholicism is true, American Catholics should bring their truth to the public debate, thereby causing a gradual opening of the minds and hearts of the wider community to moral truth. That moral truth, i.e., the universal truth of the Catholic faith, should therefore become the basis of public policy for everyone. That moral truth opposes abortion rights, gay marriage, divorce and cohabitation, as well as materialism and excessive individualism, inter alia. Presumably, following the pope’s suggestion, American Catholics should study the content of the pope’s speeches and then enact their church’s truth into law.

The pope ignores the important lesson that the citizens of the young United States and the framers of their Constitution learned from the religious wars of Europe: civil government should not be based on religious truth. Democratic government depends on shared values and consensus; its attainment becomes increasingly difficult when citizens vote for their own religion to rule. The United States should not be governed by Catholic or Christian truth, or Jewish truth, or Muslim truth, or any religious truth. There is no universal religion; religious truth varies from religion to religion, and cannot offer a common ground for people of all faiths or no faith to live together. The pope is wrong to ask American Catholics to act so that their non-Catholic fellow citizens would be governed by the church’s moral teachings.

The word secular may be part of the problem; the pope seems to believe that secularism is anti-religious, anti-faith and anti-truth. In the context of the American government, however, secular means non-religious, or, if you will, a political or legal form of government. It is this non-religious government that assures the right of all religious adherents, Catholic and non-Catholic, to believe in the truth of their religion. Making religious truth the basis of public policy would undermine that freedom. As Justice Sandra Day O’Connor reminded Americans in the Ten Commandments cases, [w]hen the government associates one set of religious beliefs with the state and identifies nonadherents as outsiders, it encroaches upon the individual’s decision about whether and how to worship. This would be the result if the pope’s teachings about truth became the basis for the law.

According to Justice O’Connor, [t]hose who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly? As the flourishing of Catholicism in the United States and the joy over the pope’s visit attests, our secular government protects Catholics’ ability to celebrate the truth of their faith by refusing to establish anyone’s truth as law.  

Anyone wanting to answer the question of “how we began” in Iraq has to confront the monumental fact that the United States, the most powerful country in the world, invaded Iraq with no particular and specific idea of what it was going to do there, and then must try to explain how this could have happened.

One possible explanation for the George W. Bush administration’s Iraq policy is the president’s Christian faith. In the period leading up to the war, the president would say that he relied on his “gut” or his “instinct” to guide the ship of state, and then he “prayed over it.” In a recent speech to Christian broadcasters, President Bush explained that his policies in Afghanistan and Iraq were undertaken because we believe that every human being bears the image of our Maker. That's why we're doing this.  Despite intense criticism, the president has remained confident about his Iraq policies: The decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision early in my presidency; it is the right decision at this point in my presidency; and it will forever be the right decision. Forever is the language of faith; in politics and history, circumstances change every day. Faith differs among religious believers, and between believers and nonbelievers; for that reason, it should not be the basis of public policy as it offers no common ground for governance. 

Nonetheless, frustrated by their years away from power, the Democratic presidential candidates have all copied the faith page from Bush’s playbook and spoken regularly of their Christianity. Campaigning as a devout Christian recently left Senator Barack Obama in the difficult position of having to explain away the fiery rhetoric of his pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who, in Obama’s words, use[d] incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.  In response to the controversy, Obama shrewdly gave a well-received speech about race, and distanced himself from some, but not all, of his pastor’s views. 

Obama missed the main point, that explicitly Christian political views have the potential to widen the religious divide. Running on religion is as divisive as running on race. According to a recent Pew Forum report, 16.1% of Americans are unaffiliated with any religion; 4.7% belong to religions other than Christianity; and 44% of American adults have changed their affiliation in some way. Nonetheless, Senator Obama has consistently played the religion card. During the recent Texas primary, he sent fliers around the state entitled “Faith, Hope, Change,” describing himself as a “Committed Christian.” Visiting the Rio Grande Valley, he said, “I know that sometimes people are hesitant to mix church and state. . . But it’s also important to remember that Jesus was an advocate. He wasn't afraid to go into the temple and throw that table down, drive the money lenders out. He was passionate about justice. Not just peace – justice.” When conservative Christians challenged his support of gay civil unions, Obama referred them to the Sermon on the Mount, which he described as more central to his faith than an obscure passage in Romans.

That remark about the Sermon on the Mount immediately prompted a discussion about the proper interpretation of different scriptural texts, their importance and their meaning, with many Christians countering that the Bible absolutely prohibits gay relations. This scriptural debate could be endless, as Scripture does not offer a common basis for public policy.

Was Obama arguing that as president he will drive the money lenders out of the temple? Is his position on the Iraq war rooted in another text from the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God”? Will Obama, like George Bush, follow faith and instinct instead of history and military judgment? These are the unanswerable questions that arise when candidates run on religion instead of shared political and constitutional values.

In his next speech, Obama should try to bridge instead of build the religious divide. 

     Senator Barack Obama voted not to confirm John Roberts as Chief Justice of the United States because of Roberts’ values. If Obama applied the same standard to himself, he would vote no a second time.

     In rejecting the justice, the senator explained that about five percent of the Supreme Court’s docket involves legally indeterminate questions “that can only be determined on the basis of one’s deepest values, one’s core concerns, one’s broader perspectives on how the world works and the depth and breadth of one’s empathy.” In other words, “the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge’s heart.” Because Roberts’ value system had consistently favored the strong over the weak, Obama found him unworthy of a seat on the Court.

     Obama practices a religious variant of preferring the strong over the weak, favoring people of faith over nonbelievers and Christianity over other religions. In his now-famous speech calling upon Democratic politicians to speak more openly of their faith so that they may reclaim religious voters, Obama recommended that politicians translate their religious convictions into universal language and then into law. Obama’s motivation is clear. He is tired of the dominance of the Christian Right’s political positions and wants to replace them with the ideas of the Christian Left, which he believes are more beneficial to the poor.

     Christian government, however, whether conservative or liberal, favors the country’s religious majority and ignores citizens of other faiths or no faith at all. Obama’s words suggest that he will do just that. His opposition to gay marriage, for example, is based on his interpretation of the Christian Bible and his belief that marriage is a religious, not a legal, institution. Obama begins his campaign rallies with prayer even though governmental prayer “sends a message to nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community.” That message is reinforced by Obama’s website, which has a special listing for “people of faith.” Obama believes other citizens should not object to the Pledge of Allegiance because he does not feel “oppressed or brainwashed as a consequence of muttering the phrase ‘under God.’” Although Obama’s position on aid to faith-based organizations is vague, his fundamental principle on these matters is to protect the church from the state rather than emphasizing other constitutional considerations (such as the need to protect the state from religious influence or to respect the consciences of citizens who do not want their tax dollars used to support religion).

     On all these subjects, and many more, the President of the United States exercises far more discretion over public policy than one of nine justices voting on five percent of the Court’s cases. By Obama’s standards Obama is unfit for office. 

     Like many politicians of the Christian Right, Obama forgets that his faith is Christian, not universal, and therefore cannot provide common principles by which all Americans should be governed. Translating Christian principles into secular language, as Obama proposes, does not solve the problem. It merely masks the basis of the policy. If, in Obama’s heart, the Bible determines the illegality of gay marriage, the place of prayer in governmental ceremonies, the type of aid that churches receive, and the appropriate reaction to the pledge, then the people are not being governed by the Constitution, but by Christian norms cloaked as political principles.  In religious matters, this is the dominance of the strong over the weak.

      Obama’s response to rumors that he is Muslim confirms the danger of campaigning and governing as a Christian in a land of religious diversity. He calls the rumors “scurrilous,” part of a “smear” campaign and a “dirty trick.”  These strong words are followed by a perfunctory reference to Muslim dignity. Obama’s denials come up short and sound insulting. Being Muslim is not a smear. Obama’s eagerness to distance himself from Islam “sends a message to [Muslims] that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to [Christians] that they are insiders, favored members of the political community.”

 

       As soon as a president, whether Republican or Democratic, George W. Bush or Barack Obama, campaigns on his Christian identity, and promises to govern by Christian principles, he loses the ability to stand for all Americans, people of faith or no faith, Christian or Muslim. Just like Supreme Court justices, presidents should follow constitutional principles and not the values that are in their hearts. 

QUESTION:  As a woman, I know it's hard to get out of the house and to get ready. And my question is very personal. How do you do it?

SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON:  It's not easy. It's not easy. And, and I couldn't do it if I just didn't, you know, passionately believe it was the right thing to do. You know, I have so many opportunities from this country. I just don't want to see us fall backwards, you know? So, you know, this, this is very personal for me. It's not just political. It's not just public. I see what's happening, and we have to reverse it.

And some people think elections are a game. They think it's like who's up or who's down. It's about our country. It's about our kids' futures. And it's really about all of us together.

Some of us put ourselves out there and do this against some pretty difficult odds. And we do it, each one of us, because we care about our country.

But some of us are right and some of us are wrong. Some of us are ready and some of us are not. Some of us know what we will do on day one, and some of us haven't really thought that through enough.

Those were the words that accompanied Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s widely-publicized tears during a campaign appearance two days before the New Hampshire primary.

The tears were over-analyzed. They demonstrated that women remain unfit to govern because they are too emotional. They proved that Clinton is inauthentic, able to conjure up tears at will to impress voters. They signified that the Clinton presidential campaign was over, or, alternatively, they merely indicated that the presidential race sets an exhausting pace for candidates. They proved that Hillary is warm and human, or instead confirmed her narcissism (because the only thing that made her cry was the end of her presidential ambitions). They caused her victory in New Hampshire. And so forth. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush cry in public all the time without challenge.

Those tears did not prevent Clinton from answering the question with the coherent set of words set out above. Her words were neglected, however, especially the sentence where Clinton choked up the most: “I just don't want to see us fall backwards.” Her words express a well-justified concern. At the end of Bill Clinton’s presidency, the Supreme Court had two women justices; now there is one. The new Court has already restricted abortion rights, relying on the paternalistic argument that the government may restrict access to abortion because some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life. After Hillary Clinton lost the Iowa caucuses, a torrent of ill-disguised hatred and resentment unleashed toward a briefly weakened Clinton, an attitude unimaginable toward a male candidate. During a debate the day before the tears, the moderator questioned Clinton about her lack of likability, which kind of felt like a high school girl being asked what she’d tell potential suitors who were ‘hesitating on the dating issue,’ and, then, compounding the indignity, her leading male opponent told her with some disdain:  “You’re likable enough, Hillary.”

When Hillary Rodham addressed her graduating class at Wellesley College in 1969, she explained that we arrived at Wellesley and we found, as all of us have found, that there was a gap between expectation and realities. But it wasn’t a discouraging gap and it didn't turn us into cynical, bitter old women at the age of 18. Almost forty years later, it must be discouraging to see the gap between our expectations and the realities of women’s equality. It is sad enough to make any woman cry. Nonetheless, the tears did not prevent Hillary from enunciating the important words that the media missed: I see what's happening, and we have to reverse it.  Whereas Senator Clinton could see what was happening through her tears—or, more accurately, was brought to tears by her vision—the media could see only the tears, or, was blinded by the tears and therefore failed to recognize that its own reaction to the tears is part of “what's happening, and we have to reverse it.” 

 

Mitt Romney got it wrong in his well-publicized speech about “Faith in America.” A neutral, non-religious, constitutional government—which Romney incorrectly derided as a secular religion—protects Mormons against discrimination much better than would Romney’s government of faith.

 

According to Romney, an unidentified “they” have established a new religion of secularism that governs American political life. Building on that foundation, Romney then argued that this secular establishment discriminates against people of faith and unfairly prevents real religion from playing its appropriate role at the center of American life.  Refusing to be silenced by the secularists, Romney proclaimed that “Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind” in an effort to persuade evangelical voters that a Mormon candidate is Christian enough to deserve the presidency of the United States.

 

Romney’s argument was politically shrewd but legally and morally incorrect. The speech was shrewd because Americans generally oppose discrimination and support the right of those who suffer discrimination to equal participation. With his lecture, Romney joined a chorus of Christians who have argued that American legal and political culture discriminates against religious people by establishing a “culture of disbelief.” To combat that alleged discrimination against faith, Romney vigorously declared his own Christianity and promised more faith-friendly policies. The secularists have had their moment, the speech explained, but now it is time for religion to reclaim the public square.

 

The word secular has become the problem, blinding Romney to the importance of neutral, non-religious government according to the First Amendment. Romney suggested that secularism is an anti-religious ideology that needs to be replaced by religion if freedom is to prevail. “Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. . . . Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone,” he argued. Romney’s reasoning was confused. Some “secular” governments—like Stalin’s Soviet Union—were oppressive, as were Afghanistan’s religious government under the Taliban as well as the Christian states from which the Puritans and Quakers fled to America. The Framers of the Constitution recognized that freedom requires a government in which no ideology or religion imposes its tenets on citizens who do not share that belief.

 

It is easier to see Romney’s mistake if we replace the word secular with neutral. The First Amendment establishes a neutral government, which does not favor religion or any one religion. That constitutional framework is not a religion of any kind, secular or otherwise; it creates a political system in which no religion dominates. That neutral model stands in stark contrast to the government recommended by Romney, in which religion is required, Christianity is favored, and the non-religious are ignored, all on the basis of opposition to a spurious secular religion.

 

Mislabeling neutral government as a secular religion opened the door for Romney to focus his speech on how good a Christian he is and to attempt to attract Christian voters on the basis of Christian principles. Romney’s approach also allows Mike Huckabee to campaign as a Christian leader who asks, “Don’t Mormons [like Romney] believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?” And it forces Barack Obama to spend more time in Christian churches to quiet unfounded rumors that he is really a Muslim. And so forth. As these examples suggest, discrimination is more likely when the candidates run on their religion than when they support a neutral government. Candidates who oppose neutral government usually do so because they want their own religion to win. 

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spoke recently at VillanovaLawSchool on the assigned topic of “the role of Catholic faith in the work of a judge.” Although a transcript of the lecture has not been made available, a news report summarized Scalia’s simple “bottom line”: “there is no such thing as a ‘Catholic judge,’” any more than there is a “‘Catholic’ way to cook a hamburger.”  “I am hard-pressed,” the justice stated, “to tell you of a single opinion of mine that would have come out differently if I were not Catholic.”  

His opinions about the Ten Commandments suggest otherwise.  

The justice is well-known for his dissenting opinions opposing the constitutional rights to abortion and homosexual privacy, as well as for his support of the death penalty. Although the first two positions are consistent with Catholic theology, the church has questioned the morality of capital punishment. Scalia explains that in all three areas, his jurisprudence is based on the Constitution, not Catholic thought. Instead of reading the Constitution’s perspectives on abortion, homosexuality and the death penalty as a Catholic, he interprets them as a “textualist,” a “strict originalist” and a “legal positivist”: “Simply put, he believes the Constitution means what it says and nothing more.” Because the Constitution says nothing about abortion, for example, the states may restrict it; that is a constitutional and not a Catholic argument.  

Should a Catholic justice enforce the death penalty when his church opposes it? The church’s opposition to the death penalty is “recent” and therefore not infallible, Scalia explained, unlike its infallible teaching about abortion. If he agreed with the church’s teaching on capital punishment, the justice believes it would be appropriate to resign from the bench rather than to refuse to enforce the death penalty on Catholic grounds. Some Catholics argue that a moral justice should stay in office and do the right thing by blocking executions. Justice Scalia, however, warned Catholics not to encourage judges to “meld religion with their work”: “If it’s proper for Catholic judges to do that, it’s proper for atheistic judges, for secularistic judges, for judges opposed to all Christian and religious beliefs, to do the same thing,” Scalia said. “And just between you and me, there are more of them than of us,” he said.                              

Scalia’s statements sound very similar to President John F. Kennedy’s famous Address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, when the presidential candidate also promised to govern by American, not Catholic, principles, and to resign if the obligations of office conflicted with his conscience. Scalia, however, somewhat surprisingly criticized Kennedy’s reasoning: “I was offended by John F. Kennedy when he was running for president and said he hoped no one would vote against him because of his religious ‘affiliation,’” he remarked, pointing out religious beliefs were the source of the abolitionists’ opposition to slavery, as well as the basis of our laws, including those against public nudity and bigamy. 

That comment suggests a loophole in Scalia’s strict textualist reading of the Constitution. If religious beliefs are the basis of the laws, then what prevents a justice from importing his religious, or Catholic, perspective into his legal interpretation? That loophole expanded after Justice Scalia observed that he is justified in inserting his Catholic perspective into constitutional interpretation when questions of natural law are involved. Although he says the areas of the Constitution concerning natural law are “relatively small,” they include rather large topics, namely freedom of speech, freedom of religion and, perhaps, the right to own guns. This list suggests that Catholic teaching could be relevant if the Supreme Court decides to hear a case about the Second Amendment arising from a strict District of Columbia gun control law.  

Two years ago Justice Scalia, interpreting the First Amendment, voted to uphold public displays of the Ten Commandments in a Kentucky courthouse and on the Texas State Capitol grounds. “[T]here is nothing unconstitutional in a State’s favoring religion generally, he wrote, although that appears inconsistent with the constitutional text prohibiting an establishment of religion. The Establishment Clause clearly, he thinks, “permits this disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities, just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists.” Scalia explained that because monotheists—Christians, Jews and Muslims—make up 97.7% of all believers in the United States, and “believe that the Ten Commandments were given by God to Moses”: 

Publicly honoring the Ten Commandments is thus indistinguishable, insofar as discriminating against other religions is concerned, from publicly honoring God. Both practices are recognized across such a broad and diverse range of the population–from Christians to Muslims–that they cannot be reasonably understood as a government endorsement of a particular religious viewpoint. 

This appears to be an opinion that might have come out differently if Scalia were not Catholic, but Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist or Polytheist.  

The next time you are in a Washington restaurant, be sure to order a Catholic hamburger.

 

 

Senator John McCain attracted considerable criticism recently when he stated in an interview on beliefnet that he would prefer a Christian to a Muslim president: “I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles . . . personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a solid grounding in my faith.” McCain later seemed to back away from that remark when he contacted beliefnet with the following clarification: “I would vote for a Muslim if he or she was the candidate best able to lead the country and defend our political values.” The candidate’s clarification is consistent with Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits any “religious test” for public office. As McCain’s new comment rightly suggests, any candidate who agrees to govern by legal and political values should be acceptable to the senator and the electorate, no matter her or his religion.

McCain should also rethink another comment he made about the Constitution during the course of the interview. When asked if he agrees with the “55 percent of Americans [who] believe the U.S. Constitution establishes a Christian nation,” McCain replied:

I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the as a Christian nation. But I say that in the broadest sense. The lady that holds her lamp beside the golden door doesn't say, “I only welcome Christians.” We welcome the poor, the tired, the huddled masses. But when they come here they know that they are in a nation founded on Christian principles.

Does the Constitution establish that the United States is a Christian nation? The expression “this is a Christian nation” was used most famously by Supreme Court Justice David Brewer in an 1892 decision, Holy Trinity Church v. United States. Holy Trinity contracted with an Englishman, the Reverend E. Walpole Warren, to become rector and pastor of their church in New York City. The Alien Labor Contract Law, however, made it “unlawful . . . to prepay the transportation, or in any way assist or encourage the importation or migration, of any alien or aliens, any foreigner or foreigners, . . . to perform labor or service of any kind in the United States, its territories, or the District of Columbia.” Under any plain reading of the statute, the contract violated the law, as the lower court had held in ruling against the church. Justice Brewer, however, declined a strict reading of the statute. He looked beyond the law’s words to interpret congressional purpose and the law’s full meaning. After perusing some legislative history, he decided that the congressional reports “concur in affirming that the intent of congress was simply to stay the influx of this cheap, unskilled labor,” not clergy. That argument about congressional intent did not suffice for the justice, however, who then added several paragraphs reviewing the Christian history of the nation. At that point, while proclaiming the United States a Christian nation, Brewer declared: “shall it be believed that a congress of the United States intended to make it a misdemeanor for a church of this country to contract for the services of a Christian minister residing in another nation?”

Today Justice Brewer sounds like a judicial activist, a character usually disliked by Republican presidential candidates and their political base. Indeed, Justice Antonin Scalia, a Reagan-appointed member of the Supreme Court who is noted for his dislike of legislative history and his willingness to take Congress at the plain meaning of their statutory words, invoked Holy Trinity just last term in a dissent to Justice Stephen Breyer’s opinion in Zuni Public School District v. Department of Education.  Criticizing what he perceived as Breyer’s broad reading of the Federal Impact Aid Program, Scalia bemoaned the “elevation of judge-supposed legislative intent over clear statutory text,” which he hoped the Court had abandoned one hundred years ago, after the mistake of Holy Trinity.

It would be surprising if the senator from Arizona, who is committed to the passage of sound federal immigration laws, would tolerate a Court or justices who read deeper meaning into congressional statutes about aliens and foreigners or, for that matter, any other statutes. But that is the approach to the Constitution that McCain’s interview proposes, as when he states, “I think the number one issue people should make [in the] selection of the President of the United States is, ‘Will this person carry on in the Judeo Christian principled tradition that has made this nation the greatest experiment in the history of mankind?’” The comment suggests that a Muslim president would be acceptable if he or she governed according to Christian principles.

That idea of Christian government is mistaken. The genius of the Constitution is that Jewish, Christian and Muslim presidents all agree to govern by constitutional, not Christian, principles, when they take the oath of office set out in the constitutional text, namely, “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” The Constitution does not describe a Christian nation. (Indeed, the Constitution does not even include the words “so help me God” at the end of that oath.)

Dr. Ron Paul is by all accounts a man of principle and conviction. Paul, a Republican Member of the House of Representatives who represents the 14th District of Texas, is running to become the Republican Party’s presidential candidate. In 1988 Paul was the Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate, running third behind George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis. Paul “reportedly would like to be listed as both a Republican and a Libertarian, if Texas law allowed. And maybe also as a member of the Constitutional Party.”

Republican, Libertarian, and Constitutional. Paul is also a Southern Baptist who was raised in a Lutheran family and once considered the ministry as a career. His two brothers are Lutheran ministers. His children were baptized Episcopalian.

Paul, a medical doctor who served in the Air Force during the 1960s, specializes in obstetrics and gynecology. He continues to practice medicine as a congressman, adding new voters to his district by delivering many babies there.

Paul is a noted intellectual fan of an Austrian school of economics represented by Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises.  Like those economists, Paul advocates free markets and limited government intervention in economic affairs. There is much evidence that he both lives and governs by his economic philosophy. A firm opponent of government spending programs, Dr. Paul refuses Medicaid or Medicare payments for his patients, working out alternative arrangements that do not depend on government funding. He put his children through college and medical school without any reliance on governmental student loans. To his congressional colleagues, Representative Paul is Dr. No because of his regular votes against government spending. He even refuses some farm subsidies and FEMA aid for his district, which includes much agricultural land and lies within the ’s hurricane zone. Paul reportedly will not take a pension when he leaves Congress.

Candidate Paul is now attracting attention within the Republican field because he voted against the Iraq War and the first Gulf War and regrets his vote for the 40 billion dollars in appropriations for that was “misused.” His opposition to those wars was influenced by his suspicion of big government and war’s expense. He also mentions Christianity in relationship to the and focused on Christian arguments against war:

“I was annoyed by the evangelicals’ being so supportive of pre-emptive war, which seems to contradict everything that I was taught as a Christian,” he recalls. “The religion is based on somebody who’s referred to as the Prince of Peace.”

While he was out of Congress during the 1980s, Paul created the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education (FREE); in Congress, he heads the Liberty Caucus. appears to be his watchword. He opposed the USA Patriot Act, the Federal Marriage Amendment, the reinstatement of the draft, and some federal drug legislation. He is more sympathetic to state than federal power. On the question of abortion, for example, he supports states’ rights to restrict abortion and the removal of abortion questions from the jurisdiction of the federal courts. When pressed about how a libertarian can deny women the liberty to choose abortion, he responded that libertarian and pro-life perspectives are consistent:

“If you can't protect life then how can you protect liberty?” Furthermore, Paul argued . . . that since he believes libertarians support non-aggression, libertarians should oppose abortion because abortion is “an act of aggression” against a fetus, which he believes to be alive, human, and possessing legal rights.

The bases for Paul’s policy stances appear various and complex. Paul should be subject to liberal criticism if he bases his votes about prayer, abortion, marriage and other topics on biblical or Christian principles. Religion  is not the appropriate basis for government in this democracy, which should be based on shared constitutional principles. What should liberals make of Paul’s libertarian commitments, which have connected him to a “network of true believers” in market-oriented policies? Are such principles more politically appropriate because they are secular and economic, not religious?

No. Political liberals expect politicians to bracket their religious and philosophical commitments and to govern according to political and constitutional principles. Christians justifiably complain of discrimination when they are asked to ignore their deepest convictions while non-religious politicians pursue their secular moral ideals. When setting public policy, Paul should be a constitutionalist first, not a Christian or a libertarian.

Striking the proper balance between public policy and personal philosophy could be difficult for Paul, because liberty is a central constitutional principle as well as a libertarian one. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in his famous 1905 Lochner dissent, however, “a Constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory, whether of paternalism and the organic relation of the citizen to the state or of laissez faire.” Voters should ask Representative Paul if his policies are rooted in the Constitution or in a theory of the Constitution that is based on economics. The Constitution provides the shared principles of governance; the Bible, St. Augustine, Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises do not. Libertarianism should be treated like any other religion with a “network of true believers;” it provides an interesting and admirable foundation of moral principles for Paul’s personal and family life but fails as the appropriate source for public policy.

When asked by an Iowa voter whether he was a practicing Catholic, Republican presidential candidate and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani responded:

My religious affiliation ... and the degree to which I am a good or not so good Catholic, I prefer to leave to the priests.
 
When the voter pressed him to answer the question, Giuliani reiterated:

That's a matter of individual conscience. . . . I don't think there should be a religious test for public office.
 
The religious test for public office language invokes Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, which states: “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

Because there is little case law interpreting the Religious Test Clause, it is frequently viewed as an irrelevant or forgotten part of the Constitution. According to law professor Paul Horwitz, however, that conclusion is “quickly belied” by the extensive popular use (230,000 hits on Google!) of the expression “religious test,” especially during the nominations of John Roberts, Harriet Miers and Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court, when some commentators suggested that questioning nominees about their faith, or voting for or against nominees because of their religious views, violates Article VI.

Horwitz concludes that the popular commentary misread the scope of the Religious Test Clause, which is very narrow:


Thus, although the Constitution requires President Giuliani to take an oath or affirmation to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” he cannot be compelled to swear an oath to Jesus or to take communion in the Catholic Church or any other church.

    Obviously the Iowa voter was not advocating any legal violations of Article VI. Why, then, would Giuliani—a talented lawyer who worked in the prestigious Office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the Justice Department—invoke the constitutional language in a situation where there was no constitutional violation?

Giuliani’s response provides a practical, political application of the constitutional text. The Religious Test Clause, and Giuliani’s answer, simply remind us that the Qualifications for public office are political, not religious. If religious faith qualifies one for public office, then it is appropriate to consider whether the mayor’s pro-choice positions are consistent with Catholic dogma, how often he attends Mass, how many times he has been married (three), whether his first and second marriages were annulled by the Catholic Church, if his third marriage prevents him from receiving communion at his church’s services, and whether Catholic bishops intend to deny him communion because of his support for abortion rights.

Consider these two topics of abortion and divorce, which are frequently raised in connection with Guiliani’s campaign. Religious history professor Randall Balmer reminds his readers that, in the New Testament, Jesus is silent on abortion but condemns divorce. Does this mean that a pro-choice, never-divorced candidate (say, Hillary Clinton) is more qualified for the presidency than a divorced and pro-life one (like Ronald Reagan)? Which situation should the voters take more seriously: that some Catholic bishops refused communion to John Kerry for his pro-choice votes, or that Rudy Giuliani’s remarriage after divorce, without annulment, makes him ineligible to receive communion? And so forth.

All those matters are best left to the priests. The priests, however, should not decide who governs—as they would, indirectly, if voters focus on how well a candidate practices Catholicism, Methodism, Mormonism or Judaism. Because the Constitution bars religious tests as qualifications for public office, the voters should follow its logic and spirit, asking the candidate, not if he is a practicing Catholic, but if he is a practicing politician who is faithful to the Constitution.


 

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has borrowed a page from President George W. Bush’s playbook. She is running her presidential campaign on vague faith. The Senator has frequently decried the Democrats’ abandonment of the faith playing field to the Republicans. She does not want to make that mistake. Instead, she has decided to run on faith, just as Bush, a fellow Methodist, did. Despite her recent protestation that Methodists do not wear their faith on their sleeves, is wearing her faith everywhere. Her campaign statements bear many similarities to the tactics adopted by President Bush during his successful runs for office. For example:

She states emphatically and repeatedly that she is a person of faith whose faith is central to her life.

She lets voters know that she prays frequently, both on her own and in bipartisan prayer groups. She collects biblical verses and packs a Bible when she travels. She expresses gratitude for the prayer warriors who pray for her constantly, and she learned from theologian Henri Nouwen the “discipline of gratitude.” (267)

She hints that salvation is available to Christians only (a claim that got Bush into political trouble when he ran for governor of Texas).

She names an important pastor, the Reverend Don Jones, who has encouraged and sustained her faith. (For Bush it was Billy Graham.) According to biographer Carl Bernstein (34), Reverend Jones taught Hillary Rodham to “meld” her sense of politics to her sense of religion and therefore to pursue faith in action.  

She mentions prominent theologians who have influenced her religion—John Wesley, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Paul Tillich—without addressing their works in any detail in order to explain the nature of their impact on her beliefs.

She explains that Christian faith sustained her during her marital crises, just as renewed faith in Jesus led Bush to renounce alcohol in order to save his marriage.

She praises faith-based organizations.

She hires a political consultant to help her to identify and capture the religious vote.

Although many Democrats will be happy that their party is finally pursuing the Republicans’ strategy, thereby presumably increasing their chances of gaining the White House, voters should reject any politician who melds religion and politics into action. The faith of the Christian Left provides no better basis for politics than the faith of the Christian Right. It is still faith, and it is still Christian. Prudence, not faith, is the appropriate basis for presidential decisions. Executive policies should be based on constitutional, not Christian, principles, because the former are the only principles shared by all of the nation’s citizens.

The Senator’s numerous comments about faith seem to confirm Bernstein’s observation that “Hillary’s faith is the link. . . . It explains the missionary zeal with which she attacks her issues and goes after them. . . . And, it also explains the really extraordinary self-discipline and focus and ability to rely on her spirituality to get through all of this.” (36)  Voters cannot be sure if Bernstein is right or wrong, however, because in this presidential campaign there is a missing link, namely any adequate explanation from the Senator about how her religion will specifically affect her policies and decision-making. How will the choices of her presidency be influenced by John Wesley, Reinhold Niebuhr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Don Jones?

One good reason to oppose faith-based politics is precisely that it diverts attention away from politics to faith. This happens in several ways. The Senator’s public invocation of her personal faith opened the door to political debate about how authentic her spirituality really is. Some Republicans have spoken with derision about ’s faith, while others, like Senator Sam Brownback, a member of her Senate prayer group, have apologized for their behavior toward her. Such public discussion about politicians’ spirituality is useless; judgments about an individual’s religious convictions are better left to her or his church, synagogue or mosque, and, ultimately, of course, to God, instead of to the voters.

Compounding the problem, commentators who respect the private nature of faith do not dare to question it, and remain focused on ’s marital troubles or prayer groups instead of asking hard questions about the implications of her faith for policy, therefore leaving crucial political issues unaddressed.

If candidates insist on running on faith, voters should demand that their faith be clear and not vague. The Bush presidency suggests questions to which Senator Clinton has not yet provided answers. Will the second President Clinton favor faith-based organizations because they share her faith? Will her Christian principles influence her decisions to take the nation to war or to seek peace? Will Christian faith—or the appeal to Christian voters—take priority over women’s equality?

In her autobiography, the Senator wrote: “Faith is like stepping off a cliff and expecting one of two outcomes—you will either land on solid ground or you will be taught to fly.” (494) Voters should not step off a cliff with a candidate of vague faith.

 

Democrats are talking about their faith, most recently in interviews on CNN. Faith helped Hillary Clinton to endure her husband’s infidelity. Because John Edwards sins multiple times every day, he is unable to identify the biggest sin he ever committed. Joe Biden prays the rosary every day. Bill Richardson’s grandmother gave him a tiny crucifix to put in the pocket of his baseball uniform for good luck. Chris Dodd’s children were baptized into the senator’s Catholic faith and blessed into their mother’s Mormon faith. All the Catholics—Biden, Richardson, Dodd, as well as Dennis Kucinich—disagree with the pope about something, but still consider themselves good Catholics. Clinton says Methodists do not wear their faith on their sleeves. Nonetheless, she is grateful for the “prayer warriors” around the world who pray for her. She has been a praying person all her life, and sometimes she asks God why he can’t help her to lose weight. Barack Obama’s faith reminds him that he is part of a community, owing duties to others and not just to himself, in other words that he and people of faith must become “our brother’s keeper, our sister’s keeper.”

 

The candidates also voiced their Christian opposition to poverty and their religious sense of obligation to care for the poor. Debate sponsor Jim Wallis, the director of Sojourners/Call to Renewal, a faith-based organization devoted to social justice, posed pointed questions about the candidates’ commitment to end poverty. In an influential book, God’s Politics, Wallis has argued that progressive Christians must challenge the Republican monopoly on public religion by speaking more openly of their faith and by expanding the debate about moral values beyond abortion and homosexuality to include poverty, war and capital punishment. “The best response to bad religion is better religion, not secularism,” Wallis writes. (66)

 

The debates suggest instead that bad religion has led to more bad religion, and confirm that mixing faith with politics is a bad idea. Wallis is correct that we need to expand the range of moral issues far beyond abortion, but wrong to believe that more faith will help the discussion. Consider the debate we got, with sin and infidelity and weight loss, not to mention Paula Zahn challenging the Catholic politicians about the nature of their disagreements with the pope. Imagine instead a discussion where the politicians spent two hours explaining what their administrations would do to address poverty, including the poverty created by hurricanes and other natural disasters.

 

What is wrong with focusing on faith? Consider the lessons learned from another Democratic presidential candidate who spoke openly about his faith, his sin and his infidelity on the campaign trail. Jimmy Carter was high in the polls in 1976, the “Year of the Evangelical,” until he told Robert Scheer in Playboy magazine that he had “looked on a lot of women with lust” and “committed adultery in [his] heart many times.” Campaigning about faith can be risky; although Carter’s theology was sound, he offended some religious voters, dropped some fifteen percentage points in the polls and almost lost to Gerald Ford.

 

After Carter’s election, many Christians who were originally proud of the Evangelical president became disillusioned with him because he believed in the separation of church and state, supported the Equal Rights Amendment, opposed prayer in public schools and upheld the Supreme Court’s abortion decision, Roe v. Wade. They attacked the president’s faith, accusing the devout Southern Baptist of being a secular humanist and not a good Christian. The major organizations of the Religious Right were founded during the Christian Carter’s presidency, urging a return to . . . Christian values!

 

Carter’s public faith opened the door to his critics’ assessing legal and policy issues in terms of their religious merits. The Right’s successful efforts added more and more religion to our political discourse, culminating in the election of George W. Bush, who believes that God called him to lead the nation.  Tired of government according to the principles of the Religious Right, the Democrats now threaten to govern as the Religious Left. This is a mistake. Faith cannot provide common principles for governing citizens of different religions. Even the seemingly clear principle that Christians should help the poor is subject to debate. Didn’t Jesus also say, “The poor you will always have with you”?

 

Focusing on faith avoids the complex political decisions that await resolution. Adding more religion to policy debates will lead to unending and irresolvable discussions about who is the better Methodist—Bush or Clinton?—or the best Catholic—Giuliani or Dodd, Kucinich or Sam Brownback? In God’s Politics, voters will be pressed to decide whose faith is true or authentic, a decision more appropriately left to…. God.

 

Wallis is wrong. The best response to bad religion is not more bad religion. It is better politics.

     In April the five Catholic Justices on the United States Supreme Court upheld the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 in Gonzales v. Carhart. Leroy Carhart, one of the doctors who unsuccessfully challenged that federal ban on partial-birth abortion [PBA], was on the winning side in 2000, when the Court issued a 5-4 ruling in Stenberg v. Carhart that a statute banning partial-birth abortion was unconstitutional. In Stenberg, the three Catholics then on the Court—Justices Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas (along with Chief Justice William Rehnquist)—dissented from the Court’s ruling. In the recent decision, new Chief Justice John Roberts voted with those three dissenters, while Sandra Day O’Connor’s replacement on the Court, Justice Samuel Alito, provided a fifth vote to uphold the congressional ban on PBA.

     During their confirmation hearings, the two new justices had firmly pledged to follow the law, not their religious or personal beliefs; Justice Kennedy, the author of Gonzales, made the same promise to the Senate in 1988. Nonetheless, the Gonzales opinion is noteworthy because its reasoning is closer in style and substance to Roman Catholic moral theology than to constitutional precedent, including Stenberg and the Court’s leading abortion case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey. 

     Roman Catholic teaching about abortion is straightforward and absolute:  all direct abortion is prohibited as murder. The fetus, who is a person from the moment of conception, has an “inviolable” right to life. Dangers to the health and life of the mother, “however serious and tragic, can never justify the deliberate killing of an innocent human being.” Roman Catholic theologians have identified two narrow circumstances in which “indirect” abortion is permitted to save the woman’s life: a doctor may remove the uterus of a pregnant woman who has uterine cancer, or the fallopian tube of a woman who has an ectopic pregnancy. Under this reasoning, however, a doctor who preserves the mother’s fertility by performing an abortion while leaving the uterus intact may act immorally. The health of the mother, moreover, can never outweigh the life of the fetus.

     In stark contrast is the “essential holding” of Roe v. Wade, as interpreted by the Court in Casey (in an opinion joined by Justice Kennedy) and reiterated by Kennedy in Gonzales:

First is a recognition of the right of the woman to choose to have an abortion before viability and to obtain it without undue interference from the State. Before viability, the State's interests are not strong enough to support a prohibition of abortion or the imposition of a substantial obstacle to the woman's effective right to elect the procedure. Second is a confirmation of the State's power to restrict abortions after fetal viability, if the law contains exceptions for pregnancies which endanger the woman's life or health. And third is the principle that the State has legitimate interests from the outset of the pregnancy in protecting the health of the woman and the life of the fetus that may become a child. (emphasis added)

      Justices Scalia and Thomas have been vociferous critics of Casey; they deny that the Constitution protects any right to abortion.

      The Nebraska PBA law was unconstitutional both because it was vague and because it contained no health exception for the mother. The vagueness comes from the difficulty of distinguishing the legal abortion procedure known as dilation and evacuation (D&E), in which the fetus is removed in parts, from dilation and extraction (D&X, also known as intact D&E or PBA), where the fetus is removed in intact form, without dismemberment.

      Congress’s PBA legislation both defined PBA more precisely and included findings that PBA is never necessary to save the mother’s health. Relying on Casey and Stenberg, and questioning Congress’s findings, six federal courts invalidated the act, reasonably concluding under those precedents that an abortion statute must contain an exception for pregnancies that endanger the woman’s health.

      The new Supreme Court upheld the legislation despite medical evidence that women’s health may be affected by the ban. In a surprising new argument for the Court, Justice Kennedy explained that Congress has the power to ban PBA in order to spare women the regret they may experience post-abortion (even though there are “no reliable data to measure the phenomenon” of post-abortion regret). His opinion thus weakened the existing protection for a woman’s health exception as well as added a new rationale for the state to restrict abortion, namely its desire to protect women from sorrow over their choice to abort.

      Consider the similarities between Church and Court. Both support an absolute rule (no direct abortion, no PBA) that always favors fetal life over maternal health. Both substitute a banned procedure for the judgment of the woman and her doctor. Their proposed standard, whether direct or indirect, D&E or D&X, is difficult to apply in practice; even Justice Kennedy acknowledges that some applications of the statute may remain unconstitutional. Finally, both positions are deduced from a hierarchy of moral principles that values fetal life over women’s health and women’s choice.

      Those principles are compelling and possibly correct as a matter of morality. What the Court’s moral analysis lacks, however, is sufficient attention to the constitutional and legal value emphasized by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, now the only woman on the Court, namely “a woman’s autonomy to determine her life’s course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature.” Although the Church is free to reject that principle, the Catholic members of the Court should uphold it.

         Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards believes that politicians should speak openly about their faith but not politicize it. According to the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee and 2008 presidential candidate, faith should not be used as part of any political strategy:

I embrace faith, and I believe America should embrace all faiths and those who don’t have faith. If we are multicultural and multifaith then we ought to embrace all faiths. Faith is not a political tool.

       How can a politician both embrace faith and yet not politicize it?  Senator Edwards argues that the constitutional separation of church and state, which he endorses, does not require the separation of faith from politics in the mind of the individual politician.  In his words from an interview with David Kuo, the Constitution does not mandate “freedom from religion.” It is “not possible” for him, he explains, to separate his faith from the rest of his life, including his political commitments. Instead, he argues, politicians should “express their faith.” When asked by Kuo about the source of his commitment to anti-poverty programs, for example, Edwards responded that his programs arise both from his impoverished childhood and from his Christian belief. “If you took every reference to taking care of the least of these out of the Bible, there would be a pretty skinny Bible.”

         Does this commitment to the public expression of faith mean that the senator translates his religious beliefs into public policy? Apparently not. Edwards’ position is that faith informs policy but does not provide its substance. He insists that he “would not, under any circumstances, try to impose [his] personal faith and belief on the rest of the country.” The president’s responsibility runs to people of all faiths or no faith at all. Although he values faith-based organizations and worked for one of them in North Carolina, for example, Edwards believes that any aid to such organizations must honor constitutional limits (i.e., not promote faith). In particular, FBOs receiving federal aid should be subject to anti-discrimination laws.  The Constitution, not faith, sets the limits of public policy.

         Some politicians express their faith publicly in order to attract voters who share their religion. Several Democrats who believe that the Republicans won electoral success through that strategy now include more God-talk in their speeches as a way to appeal to religious voters. Edwards decries that political strategy, arguing that public religion should not be used as the basis for an appeal to voters but as an explanation to voters of one’s personal identity: 

If you’re being asked about how you make decisions, what are the things that affect you when you make decisions, I think it’s perfectly reasonable under those circumstances to give honest answers about your faith and how your faith affects your value system and what you believe and what you care about.

         Edwards has explained his faith most directly in the context of his family life and personal suffering.  He was raised as a Southern Baptist, but as a young adult fell away from his childhood faith. When his son Wade died suddenly in 1996, he explains, “my faith came roaring back.” His faith, namely that “God will be there when you need him. . . . That when things seem at their worst and their lowest, he will always be there for you,” has also helped him to confront other difficult challenges of life, most notably his wife Elizabeth’s cancer diagnosis.

         Aides to the Edwards campaign report that there were no political strategy meetings about Mrs. Edwards’ cancer. Instead, the couple met privately to discuss how they would confront this latest sorrow. Disease is not a political tool. Across the country, cancer survivors of all political stripes united to encourage Elizabeth Edwards and wish her well. Many citizens of faith and no faith admired the Edwards family’s courage, perhaps wondering how they would deal with the death or serious illness of a child or a spouse, or recalling how such losses had tested their strength. After all, as the candidate frequently observes, other families have faced similar challenges to his.

         In such circumstances, faith may come roaring back…or not, because reactions to suffering are individual. From such experiences, many people learn what Edwards promises to teach other politicians: that faith is not a political tool. Instead, faith should be something that sustains politicians to seek the best political solutions to the problems—such as poverty, or disease, or inadequate health insurance--that test people’s faith.

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.

    According to presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, “the American people want to see a person of faith lead the nation, and I don’t think the American people care very deeply about which brand of faith that is.”  I think that brand of faith should be political faith.

    Romney’s campaign has raised numerous questions about the significance of his Mormon faith for public office. Some observers wonder if non-Mormons, especially evangelical Christians, will not vote for a Mormon candidate because of their doubts about Mormonism as a religion. For example, ABC reporter George Stephanopoulos recently asked Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a Southern Baptist, whether Huckabee and Baptists believe Mormonism is a cult.  Other commentators ask if Romney would be beholden to the living prophets of his church, in the same way that an earlier generation of Americans feared that John Kennedy would take orders from the pope. Would President Romney take direction from the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints? A third concern involves the substance of Romney’s policies. Would he urge Congress and the American people to enact the tenets of his faith into the laws of the United States? On that subject, the record already reflects that Governor Romney allowed alcohol sales on Sunday and expanded the state lottery even though Mormons are not supposed to drink or gamble. This same issue has also led to some debate about exactly what Mormons believe about abortion and stem cell research, other topics on which the governor has a public record.

    When asked by one interviewer how he would address questions about his religious faith during the presidential campaign, the governor replied:
 
    I think the American people want to see a person of faith lead the nation, and I don’t think the American people care very deeply about which brand     of faith that is.
    There’s not very much that’s well known about my church because it’s not broadly based throughout the nation with large numbers of people who     are adherents. When anything is unknown, people are going to be a little skeptical. But I think, again, as individuals look at my life and my family’s     life, they’ll recognize that my values are quintessential American values; that my religious beliefs are consistent with the religious beliefs of other         Judeo-Christian faiths, such as a belief in the divinity of God and the need to need to provide service to others, the preeminence of the family unit.     These types of elements are what America looks for in a leader. (Robert B. Bluey, “Q&A: Mitt Romney Discusses Iraq War, Reagan’s Influence and Gay     Marriage,” January 1, 2007, www.humanevents.com)

    Romney’s comments suggest two approaches to relating faith to public policy: first, that a Mormon president is acceptable because Mormonism shares common elements with other religious traditions; and second, that Romney will govern according to quintessential American values that are not based on his or any other religious tradition. We can label a candidate from the first school a person of religious faith and the second an individual of political faith.

    The first approach is unsatisfactory. It is philosophically and historically difficult for even learned scholars to identify exactly what qualifies as a religion and what values the world’s religions share or oppose; presidential candidates should be spared the theological controversy that attends such discussions. In a debate set on religious terms, Romney would be repeatedly subjected to questions about the tenets of Mormonism, expected to defend or reject Mormon teachings, and eventually challenged whether Mormonism is really a cult that stands outside of mainstream religious values. During such a campaign, religious voters might expect that the candidate would eventually adopt their religious values instead of his own, because their religious views were more authentic, more common or more American. Indeed, such questions are already being asked today in some circles, namely whether the Mormon Romney can pick up the evangelical vote by moving closer to the tenets of their faith and away from his own.

    John Kennedy anticipated this problem in his presidential campaign by expressing his belief in an America “where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind.” He recognized that campaigns and votes based on blocs of religious belief divide rather than unite, and that political faith—government based on common American values shared by persons of all faiths or no faith at all—protected his practice of Catholicism against critics who derided his religious faith and spread stereotypes about Catholic politicians.

    Recently Governor Romney stated: “I’m not running as pastor-in-chief. I’m running for commander-in-chief.