Stormy Waters wrote:Is it really prejudiced to be unwilling to vote for someone for someone because their religion? To Mormons I ask, would you vote for a scientologist? What about an atheist? This idea that a candidates religion should be somehow off limits seems ridiculous to me. After all what influences a persons worldview more than their religion? How can you say that moraltity comes from your religious worldview and then place it off limits? Certainly I think that if people do refuse to vote for a candidate, it should be because of a correct understanding of their faith and not because of misconceptions.
Personally I think Mormonism is especially problematic. If the church were to ask Romney to vote a certain way, how does he turn them down if he sincerely believes that they are God's representatives? I think you just need to look at the the
MTC building earlier this year, and see how the church leveraged their ecclesiastical authority over the membership to push a civil matter through. How do you know they won't try to exert a similar type of influence over Romney?
Likewise if a candidates religion instructs him that homosexuals are sinners and deserve some kind of infinite punishment I will take that into consideration when I'm at the voting both. If because of their religious beliefs they think the world is 6000 years old, I will take that into consideration. I can't just ignore it because it happens to fall under the realm of faith.
But if the name of the game is playing the persecution card,
I guess I win as 43% say they won't vote for an atheist.
Of course, it would be disconcerting to think an elected official takes marching orders from his or her religion.
More likely, but perhaps even more pernicious, is that the elected official makes decisions, fearing eternal judgment consequences for those official decisions. It is one thing to know the source of beliefs that have shaped one's moral development and thinking. It is worthy of examination, as a possible predictor of how, if elected, that adherent might decide certain issues that will come across his or her desk. That's what I see the relevance of Romney's faith, as I have seen no indication that he would kow-tow either to the FP/12 if they sought to direct his presidential decision making or that he would, when making a decision, ask himself, "What would (Mormon) Jesus do?"
I have nevertheless witnessed the thinking of many of those BIC (multiple generations at that) and raised in the LDS faith is clearly 'informed' by the tenets of Mormonism, even when the subject is not a religious topic. Usually those Mormons that exhibit it in elected office are, like Romney, Republican. Don't see it so much in Harry Reid, for example.
There are those that are both Mormon and Republican that believe a good Mormon must be a Republican, seeing much more overlap between the two sets of ideas than between Mormonism and Democrats.
In Romney's instance, what drives him to be a Republican in the first place? He's been all over the map on many social issues. He does seem to be more 'at home' with the Republican philosophies when it comes to fiscal issues. That, and it being the party of his fathers, might be the explanation.
That Romney has not towed the Mormon line when it comes to social issues, and social issues ought to be the preeminent of religious concern, I do not see evidence that he would consciously factor the LDS position into his policy making decisions on social issues. His meandering history on social issues might be a concern written off as due to maturation or a willingness to think things through and change his mind. However, if one overlays the political races and places he has been in when and as those changes have occurred, and the direction he tacked, there is more than a mere passing coincidence that one can chalk up to political expedience being Romney's motivation on social issues. On social issues, Romney's past reveals more of a political opportunist than a man guided by principle or his faith.
As the American public is realizing that preventing gay marriage is stupid, one might expect that if elected Romney would not oppose legislative moves to open marriage up to gays, despite the LDS Church being opposed to such. Romney also seems more receptive to women's equality issues than the LDS Church.
Romney seems more interested--and more consistent--in fiscal issues than social issues or international relations. And here, he is in sync with the majority of Mormons. However, Romney's fiscal thinking seems more the product of his father's and his own occupational experience than driven by Romney's Mormon faith.
As to international relations, I don't see candidate Romney all that clear, or even interested.
So in sum, I do not see a Romney presidency as a "Mormon" presidency. I think Americans that would vote against Romney because he is Mormon as either an overblown fear of Mormon dictates emanating from the White House, or good old-fashioned religious discrimination (which as Chap pointed out, is perfectly allowed by the voters).
Am I voting for Romney? No. I do not vote nor support any candidates for office. I simply think that the Mormon religion is not a good factor for anyone to decide whether to vote for or against Romney.