Bigotry Booms per Craig

The recent decline in Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s poll numbers sheds some light on a disturbing trend in American politics — the re-emergence of religious bigotry.

Although Romney’s political platform is identical with the Religious Right’s on abortion, homosexuality, etc., conservative Christian evangelicals will not vote for him solely because of his faith. Robert Jeffress, a Baptist pastor from Dallas, said recently — and quite dispassionately — “Mitt Romney is a Mormon. Mormonism is not Christianity. Mormonism is a cult.” Theological conformity trumps political agreement. Is this the extent to which our political discourse has evolved over 231 years?

I wouldn’t vote for Romney, not because he is a Mormon, but because of his political platform. Find me a candidate who pledges to rescind this immoral war, to restore America’s reputation in the world, to place environmental protection on par with corporate profits and poor people on par with wealthy donors, to let women decide their own reproductive fate, and who thinks freedom of religion means any — or no — religion, then I wouldn’t care if he (or she) was Mormon, Buddhist, Hindu, Wiccan, atheist, or Presbyterian. I might even vote for him if he were — dare I say it? — an evangelical Christian.

W. Craig Heymann