Faithless in America

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney gave his big Faith in America speech today. Good for Mitt’s webmasters, they made it easy to find by putting it right up on the splash page.

The media got the memo and talked it up as Mitt Romney’s JFK speech, answering to American Protestants for his Mormonism like JFK accounted for his Catholicism.

On Good Morning America, evangelical Reverend Richard Land opined that Mormons are not Christians. To the most exclusionary American evangelicals, Romney and JFK aren’t just the wrong kind of Christians, they shouldn’t be called “Christians” at all. (For counterpoint, they brought in Glenn Beck. Surely they could have invited a Mormon who isn’t an incendiary hatemonger.)

After George Bush Senior’s introduction:

Mr. President, your generation rose to the occasion, first to defeat fascism, then to vanquish the Soviet Union…

They didn’t vanquish the Soviet Union; it persisted until it collapsed in the 1990s.

America faces a new generation of challenges: radical, violent Islam seeks to destroy us; an emerging China endeavors to surpass our economic leadership, and we’re troubled at home, by government overspending, overuse of foreign oil, and the breakdown of the family.

Remember the Reagan years, Mitt? Government overspending and overuse of foreign oil are not new problems.

What do you mean by breakdown of the family? Divorce? People have been getting divorces even longer than governments have been overspending. How is that a new generation… oh, I get it.

Is that code for “same‐sex marriage”? James Dobson and his ilk keep saying same‐sex marriage will lead to the breakdown of the family? I almost missed that, what with my liberal notion that people who get married build families.

There are some who may feel that religion is not a matter to be considered in the context of the weighty threats that face us. If so, they’re at odds with the nation’s founders, for they, when our nation faced it’s greatest peril, sought the blessings of the Creator.

Do any of these hypothetical there are some who may feel… if so… exist?

The founders did what, when? I think you mean “the founders prayed”. Many were deists, but sure, some others did.

That does not make religion relevant to every national security issue. Just a few. Weighty threats like radical, violent religion.

In John Adams’ words, We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution, he said, was made for a moral and religious people.

Said the president who signed his name to these words:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,— as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen,— and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

Speaking of moral and religious people, John Adams armed the government to contend with journalists criticizing his unpopular war with the Alien and Sedition Acts. Because Constitutional rights were only for those loyal to him. John Adams has as little credibility speaking about morality and spiritual values as Richard Nixon or George W. Bush: none at all.

Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom.

Whoa! Wrong, wrong, wrong! That does not follow!

Religious freedom means freedom to have religion or not to have religion.

The former president who introduced you once said, I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God. George Bush’s words were profoundly un‐American, and very obnoxious.

As were yours, Mitt.

I am an atheist, and I am an American, and I am free.

Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.

Religion without freedom perishes? Did you miss the entire history of humanity? Of the Church?

Your words ring like Thomas Paine, but lack common sense.

Almost 50 years ago, another candidate from Massachusetts explained he was an American running for president, not a Catholic running for president. Like him, I am an American running for president.

There it is, your much heralded JFK moment.

A person should not be elected because of his faith, nor should he be rejected because of his faith.

Nor absence thereof.

Rob Wheeler described this speech to me as 300 five‐second soundbites in a row. I can understand why. It’s a little like Nathan Petrelli’s rambling press conference in this week’s Heroes. You should work on that, Mitt, lest you come off too preprocessed and phony.

Fortunately, after this you get to the important stuff: that no church authorities will exert influence over presidential decisions, and that he will put no church doctrine above the plain duties of the office.

Good. Just what we’d expect of any president.

Some believe that such a confession of my faith will sink my candidacy. If they’re right, so be it, but I think they underestimate the American people.

I think so too. As vexing as certain conservatives’ disregard for the will of the American people is, it’s admirable to stand up for what’s right, public be damned.

No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith, for if he becomes president, he will need the prayers of the people all faiths.

All faiths? Setting aside this odd idea that presidents need prayers, does this mean all prayers are effective, no matter who they’re prayed to?

I ask because many gods command their believers not to worship another god, or else. Wouldn’t such jealous gods ignore prayers to other, false gods?

I’m not a believer myself, just curious.

I believe that every faith I’ve encountered of draws its adherents closer to God.

Have you encountered Satanism?

Maybe you do think all prayers go to the same being, that all faiths worship different faces of the same god.

Are adherents of radical, violent Islam drawn closer to God too? (Come closer, My unruly children, so I can condemn you into eternal hellfire.)

In a sense, though, Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Mormons are worshipping various revisions of Yahweh.

• Yahweh 1.0: god of the Jews
• Jehovah 2.0: Catholics take the Torah and add a bunch more holy books and a Christ to it.
• Allah 3.0: Muslims fork off the source tree, taking Christ to be a prophet but superceded by another prophet named Mohammed.
• God 2.5: During the Reformation, Protestants decide Jehovah 2.0 has too much feature creep, and delete a few books from the Bible, the Pope, saints, indulgences, and various other doctrines.
• God 3.0: Many centuries later, Joseph Smith adds his testament describing Christ’s return from Heaven to America, God’s homeworld Kolob, and a new covenant.

So maybe prayers to all these manifestations of the Judeo­Islamo­Christian (or more concisely, “Abrahamic”) god are forwarded to Yahweh’s inbox. Not sure where that leaves Hindu prayers to Vishnu.

While differences in theology exist between the churches in America, we share a common creed of moral convictions, and where the affairs of our nation are concerned, it’s usually a sound rule to focus on the latter, on the great moral principles that urge us all on a common course. Whether it was the cause of abolition, or civil rights, or the right to life itself, …

Does this right to life itself apply to prisoners? Because you tried to legalize state executions. (Yes, I know it’s just a euphemism for “banning abortion”.)

What course do those great moral principles urge regarding torture, Mr. Double Guantanamo?

Add same‐sex marriage to the list, while you’re at it.

All counterexamples to that common creed. Any moral cause you can name was historically opposed by devoutly religious Americans of some stripe.

…no movement of conscience can succeed in America that cannot speak to the convictions of religious people.

Nor to those of irreligious people. A moral conviction with no foundation outside religion would be swept away with the turning of the tide.

But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgement of God.

No. They. Don’t.

That is a lie. Name one person who seeks to remove any mention of God from the public sphere. You can’t. They don’t exist.

Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It’s as if they’re intent on establishing a new religion in America: the religion of secularism. They’re wrong.

More stuffing for your straw man.

Religion of secularism of oxymoron. What are their churches, libraries? What is their scripture, Origin of Species? But if it were a religion, weren’t you just saying freedom requires it?

We could call this your anti‐JFK moment, because your speech has become the opposite of his.

We are a nation under God, and in God we do indeed trust. We should acknowledge the Creator, as did the founders, in ceremony and word. He should remain on our currency, in the Pledge, in the teaching of our history…

No, we are not, and we do not. Speak for yourself, Romney. I’m American too.

That is why, like the founders, we should not acknowledge your God on our currency.

And why we should not insert your God into the pledge our children speak daily.

Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our Constitution rests.

Contrariwise, the greatness of our freedom endures because our Constitution does not rest on faith. That’s #1 on the Bill of Rights.

This is another code, right? What you’re really talking about is judges who’ll outlaw abortion on religious grounds, aren’t you?

Americans acknowledge that liberty is a gift of God, not an indulgence of government.

I am an American, and I acknowledge neither.

No people in the history of the world has sacrificed as much for liberty.

Tell the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust.

You can be certain of this: Any believer in religious freedom, any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty, has a friend and ally in me.

I am both, Mitt. If you would be my friend and ally, then when you speak of America and freedom, stop excluding me.

[Ed.: Added a few links and supporting details.]