A Mormon President?

Slate's editor, Jacob Weisberg, has a new column up explaining why he would oppose a Mormon (like the outgoing Republican governor of Massachussetts, Mitt Romney) for President. I find his reasoning extraordinary, and not in a good way.

He begins with the question, "But are you a religious bigot if you wouldn't cast a ballot for a believing Mormon?" Whenever anyone asks a rhetorical question like this, the answer is almost always "yes", yet the person asking it will almost just as surely believe the answer is "no." It's like hearing "I'm not a racist, BUT ..." and you know the odds are extremely high that you're about to hear something that is, in fact, racist. This is just as true for religious discussions as it is for race or sexism or what have you.

And Weisberg doesn't disappoint.

The remaining skepticism on the far right seems to have more to do with doubt about whether Romney has truly and forever ditched his previously expressed moderate views on abortion and gay rights.

Those nutty far righters! Imagine caring about a potential candidate's actual political positions instead of what their stance is on their own religious dogma. The nerve! What's next, looking at how they voted while in office? The horror!

Nor is it chauvinistic to say that certain religious views should be deal breakers in and of themselves. There are millions of religious Americans who would never vote for an atheist for president, because they believe that faith is necessary to lead the country. Others, myself included, would not, under most imaginable circumstances, vote for a fanatic or fundamentalist—a Hassidic Jew who regards Rabbi Menachem Schneerson as the Messiah, a Christian literalist who thinks that the Earth is less than 7,000 years old, or a Scientologist who thinks it is haunted by the souls of space aliens sent by the evil lord Xenu. Such views are disqualifying because they're dogmatic, irrational, and absurd. By holding them, someone indicates a basic failure to think for himself or see the world as it is.

Essentially, Weisberg is saying here that if he thinks your religious beliefs are absurd, you don't deserve to get elected. It doesn't matter what you would do, or how you have voted in the past, or what your positions on actual issues are, the simple fact that you hold beliefs that he considers foolish means you wouldn't get his vote. That's his right, of course, but it strikes me as the very definition of religious bigotry, which we were assured in the beginning is certainly not what the wise Mr. Weisberg is expounding here. I am aglow in the warm embrace of his tolerance.

Not.

One may object that all religious beliefs are irrational—what's the difference between Smith's "seer stone" and the virgin birth or the parting of the Red Sea? But Mormonism is different because it is based on such a transparent and recent fraud. It's Scientology plus 125 years. Perhaps Christianity and Judaism are merely more venerable and poetic versions of the same. But a few eons makes a big difference. The world's greater religions have had time to splinter, moderate, and turn their myths into metaphor. The Church of Latter-day Saints is expanding rapidly and liberalizing in various ways, but it remains fundamentally an orthodox creed with no visible reform wing ... It may be that Mitt Romney doesn't take Mormon theology at face value. His flip-flopping on gay rights and abortion to suit the alternative demands of a Massachusetts gubernatorial election and a Republican presidential primary suggests that he's a man of flexible principles—which in this context might be regarded as encouraging. But Romney has never publicly indicated any distance from church doctrine.

This is the passage that really struck a nerve, that made me want to write this reply. Weisberg's basic position is that unless a believer renounces the basic tenets of his faith, he has no place in public office. That Mitt Romney refuses to agree that the founder of his religion was a con man means he is, in Weisberg's eyes, ineligible to hold public office.

Imagine if JFK had been forced to agree that the Virgin Mary story is just a myth. Imagine a Methodist candidate like George Bush being barred from office unless he stated that the resurrection of Christ is "just a story". Weisberg basically argues that only safe, neutered, agreeable religious positions that do not unduly ruffle his notions of rationality and sensibility can be allowed in a candidate.

The questions Weisberg should be asking about Mitt Romney are about his positions on issues that he will influence should he be elected. What is his philosophy of government? Where does he stand on the separation of church and state? What is his proposal for dealing with terrorism? What kind of Supreme Court justices would he appoint? Does he believe in higher or lower taxes, bigger or smaller government, enumerated or unenumerated rights, the scope of the President's power and how that balances against the other branches of government, on and on and on.

What kind of religious undergarments he wears and what he thinks about the veracity of Joesph Smith's magic eyeglasses and hat are somewhere around dead last on the list of things I need to know before deciding whether or not I'll vote for Mr. Romney.

In other words, I couldn't really care less. Until and unless Mitt Romney shows he is irrational or absurd in how he treats real issues facing our nation today, I'll listen with just as open a mind as I would to any other religious candidate seeking office.

"[A]re you a religious bigot if you wouldn't cast a ballot for a believing Mormon?" The answer is yes, Mr. Weisberg. You are a religious bigot.