From the "questioning" done by Hillary Clinton's team of Barrack Obama's religious background, to this speech given by Mitt Romney in response to all of the questioning and bashing of his religion from various portions of the electorate, there has been a lot of "questioning" of candidates' religion.
I need only remind everyone - candidates and the people alike - of two things:
Article VI and Amendment I of the Constitution.
Officially, in a free country, religion should not be an issue. It shouldn't matter whether a President is Mormon, Christian, Atheist, Agnostic, Pagan, or Muslim. The same is true of The People. In fact, it has been branded into law (see above) that such considerations don't matter.
Unofficially, it's a different story. People should have the freedom to personally question any religion they want. That freedom does exist in America. That's freedom. It might be rude. It might be intolerant. But that's freedom...to be able to question whatever you want.
So long as such questioning isn't done officially by the government, or so long as such preferences for certain religions are not promoted by federal government or into federal legislation, there is no problem. The latter is one issue I have with Mitt Romney, when he says that "religion should be conducted in the public square".
Privately, yes, a public official should be able to practice whatever religion he or she wants. But, a religion promoted by the government in a free country is wrong. In a country where multiple religions exist, the federal government has no damn business promoting any one, single religion, much less putting the money (tax money) from all of its citizens (who represent all reglions or none) toward any one religion. Let's not forget that such action distorts the First Amendment. With comments like this, Romney shows he doesn't deserve to be the leader of a free country.
I also can't condone personal questioning by presidential candidates, as I can from The People, as Hillary did to Obama. To me, someone who is trying to become the leader of a free country should not be questioning anyone's faith, at least not publicly.
Personally, I don't question anyone's faith. But that's just me. I have to go along with what Congressman Ron Paul once stated when he responded to the questioning of Romney's religion:
"We live in times of great uncertainty when men of faith must stand up for American values and traditions before they are washed away in a sea of fear and relativism. I have never been one who is particularly comfortable talking about my faith in the political arena, and I find the pandering that typically occurs in the election season to be distasteful.
Our nation was founded to be a place where religion is freely practiced and differences are tolerated and respected. I come to my faith through Jesus Christ and have accepted him as my personal savior. At the same time, I have worked tirelessly to defend and restore individual rights and religious freedom for all Americans.
The recent attacks and insinuations, both direct and subtle, that Gov. Romney may be less fit to serve as president of our United States because of his faith fly in the face of everything America stands for. Gov. Romney should be judged fairly, on his record and his character, not on the church he attends."
Now that sounds like a man who knows:
It's a Free Country!
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