What to Require? What to Even Ask?

POL 213: In a Washington Post article last week, Peggy Noonan postulated about the recent focus on politicians’ faith, and especially in the presidential race:


"There are some people who believe faith doesn't belong in politics. But it does, and it is there inextricably. The antislavery movement, the temperance movement, the civil rights movement, the antiabortion movement, all were political movements animated in large part by religious feeling. It's not that it doesn't matter. You bring your whole self into the polling booth, including your faith and your sense of right and wrong, good and bad, just as presidents bring their whole selves into the Oval Office. I can't imagine how a president could do his job without faith.
But faith is also personal. You can be touched by a candidate's faith, or interested in his apparent lack of it. It's never wholly unimportant, but you should never see a politician as a leader of faith, and we should not ask a man who made his rise in the grubby world of politics to act as if he is an exemplar of his faith, or an explainer or defender of it."


I tend to agree with her conclusions. I too believe that religion is a bias or point of view that is inherent in each individual. It cannot be excluded from our consideration of a candidate or from his view of the world.

Just today an announcement was made that Mitt Romney would speak about his faith in relation to his political ambitions and decision-making processes. According to the statement released by his campaign, the speech “is an opportunity for Governor Romney to share his views on religious liberty, the grand tradition religious tolerance has played in the progress of our nation and how the governor's own faith would inform his Presidency if he were elected. Governor Romney understands that faith is an important issue to many Americans, and he personally feels this moment is the right moment for him to share his views with the nation."
Romney is walking in John F. Kennedy’s steps with this decision. Before the 1960 election, Kennedy took time to speak about his Catholic faith and reassure potential voters of his ability to govern well regardless of his religious beliefs. His attempt to assuage their fears appears to have worked! For months now, Romney has avoided the issue, choosing to ignore the fact that some voters may be alienated by his divergence from a mainstream faith. I wonder if the other polarizing candidates (Obama and Clinton, for instance) will choose to address race or gender concerns, or if those have been addressed to the satisfaction of the American public.