Basically, both talk about how Romney is having trouble with the Christianist base of the GOP because he is a Mormon. Armagh laments the fact that his religion is even an issue, and on that basic point I agree, it is sad that one has to pass through some sort of religious test to get elected. An atheist certainly wouldn't stand a chance in hell of getting elected president in this country.
That said, I find it to be rather like poetic justice that Romney is being hurt by the religiousity of the GOP. They have set themselves up for this in that party. And it is difficult to have sympathy for him about it when those religious right voters are exactly the people he's trying to exploit to get the nomination from the GOP. I think Andrew Sullivan sums it up rather succinctly:
The ironies are obviously deep. The elite forces behind Romney are the elite forces behind Christianism. They have ridden the bigotry horse for a long time, and now it's trampling their favored candidate. One word: heh.
Heh indeed.
1 comment:
Andrew Sullivan has the right of it on that one. There's always something wonderfully poetic about seeing someone hoisted by their own petard.
Still, that doesn't make me feel any better about the de facto religious test for high office this country has adopted. It upsets me both on principle and personally. As a Celtic Pagan, I'm about as electable (for any office, local, state, or national) as an atheist. Which means that one avenue through which I might some day want to impact my community in a positive fashion is unalterably closed to me.
Of course, all of this would be substantially less frustrating if I wouldn't have grown up in a state where a candidates religion was (at least during my youth) a complete non-issue. The only reason I know the religion of my Senators is the fact that one of the news organizations noted that both were Jewish back when Lieberman was running for VP and Jews in politics suddenly became something to analyze. To this day, I couldn't tell you the faith of my mayor, my local judges, my governor, my Congressional Rep, or anyone else on the ballot. Frankly, I could care less what any of their religions (or lacks thereof) are. And, from what I've seen, most folks in this state feel the same way.
One of the biggest culture shock things for me when I moved down South was seeing candidates and the media openly, frequently, and vociferously discussing individual candidate's faith paths.
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