Today, Mitt Romney is going to give a speech dealing with his Mormon beliefs and the role of religion in government.
I wish to make a prediction - that the crux of Romney's argument will be, "C'mon theists. It's foolish for us to be fighting each other. We need to band together to fight the evil atheists and secularists."
This is the same Mitt Romney who said:
I'm convinced that the nation . . . needs a person of faith to lead the country.
He also said on MSNBC:
“I think I’ve found that people across this country want a person of faith to lead the country, and they don’t particularly care as much about the brand of faith as they do the values the person has. And my values are as American as you can imagine,” he said.
In matters of discrimination, this is no different than saying that the nation needs a man, or a white man in the White House, or tacitly endorsing a standard like, "people across this country want a Arian in the White House and I am an Arian."
In a post I wrote at that time, Mitt Romney: No Atheists in Government I mentioned several ways in which I would like to see people challenge Romney on this statement.
I am curious to see what he will say about atheists being qualified to hold public office in this speech today.
I am just as curious as to what the public reaction will be.
2 comments:
I would guess that he would focus on secularists rather than atheists. Secularists implicitly means atheist to the GOPs base, but it is explicitly broader so that even devout evangelicals like Jimmy Carter who firmly believe in church/state separation fall under the attack. Using "secularist" as code for atheist is a way to gradually shift the meaning of the word, slowly redefining "Christian" to mean Religious Right movement conservative Republican.
It's quite an insidious use of language.
It turns out he explicitly attacked secularism (as a "religion" of all things). He also said you cannot have freedom without religion.
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