Romney’s Religion

Herman Cain and Speaker Gingrich did the right thing by demurring during the weekend television interviews to questions in respect of whether Governor Romney is a Christian. But it is maddening to see how they parried the queries. Their comments came on CBS’s Face the Nation broadcast. The broadcast began with Bob Schieffer mentioning that the two candidates had just spoken at the recent conservative values conference , where the limelight was stolen by a preacher who suggested that Mormonism is a cult and Mr. Romney is not a Christian. Mr. Cain responded by saying “we’re not running for theologian-in-chief.” Mr. Gingrich called it “very unwise and not appropriate.”

Why isn’t it appropriate? The reason is that religious tests are genuinely un-American, forbidden in the bedrock of Ariticle VI of the Constitution. This article pre-dates the Bill of Rights. It has been in effect since 1789. It says, among other things, that all senators and representatives, all state legislators, all members of the executive branch, all judicial officers — both of the federal government and the states — shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution, qualifying it only by saying that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

It has always been illuminating to us — we’ve mentioned it many times in these columns — that the religious test clause is the most emphatic statement in the entire constitution. “No . . ever . . . any,” is the way the Founders put it. They couldn’t be clearer that they didn’t want to import to American the kinds of religious tests that were used to exclude from public office at England Catholics and certain so-called non-conformists to the laws of the Church of England. This clause is a gift to every Republican in the race, from Governor Perry to Ron Paul, who wants to defend Mr. Romney and, for that matter, Governor Huntsman without debating the theological fine points.

In defending the right of Messrs. Romney and Huntsman not to be grilled on their religion, the Republicans would signal a formal break from a long line of political bigotry. The Senate spent four years debating whether it would seat one Utah Republican, Reed Smoot, a Mormon, whom it finally admitted in 1907. One could quip that we might have been spared a lot of misery had Smoot not become a senator, since it was he who advanced the tariff bill that precipitated American into the Great Depression. But his religion wasn’t the problem. If the GOP contenders were to defend Messrs. Romney and Huntsman by referring to the religious test clause, they would also provide a perfect example of how we can connect to the wisdom of the Founders, which strikes us as an important point to make in and of itself.