January 2, 2007
The Romneys of Michigan IV Posted by Fredric Smoler at 05:35 PM EST Josh Zeitz writes on Mitt Romney, quoting an article by Damon Linker in The New Republic. Linker writes, “In the case of Mitt Romney, citizens have every reason to seek clarification about the character of his Mormonism. Does he believe, for example, that we are living through the ‘latter days’ of human history, just prior to the second coming of Christ? And does he think that, when the Lord returns, he will rule over the world from the territory of the United States? Does Romney believe that the president of the Mormon Church is a genuine prophet of God? If so, how would he respond to a command from this prophet on matters of public policy? And, if his faith would require him to follow this hypothetical command, would it not be accurate to say that, under a President Romney, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would truly be in charge of the country—with its leadership having final say on matters of right and wrong?” Josh asks, “Are these questions fair game? Or do they violate the spirit of the Constitutional prohibition against religions means tests for office holders? A question for my fellow AmericanHeritage.com contributors.” Okay, I’ll bite. First of all, I think a religious test for office holders should be understood as a legal requirement that an office holder subscribe to a particular religious doctrine, which I think is how the Founders understood the phrase, because they were vividly aware of the Test Acts in Great Britain, which placed various disabilities on Roman Catholics and Dissenters and generally prohibited them from holding public office. The first legislation specifically doing the latter was passed in the reign of Charles II. There were others; comparable religious tests for public office existed in many other European states, and in Great Britain these requirements were mostly abolished in the first third of the nineteenth century. Article VI of our Constitution bars a legal requirement, and The New Republic is not requiring one, but Josh asks whether entertaining such questions means violating the spirit of the Sixth Amendment. I do not think it does, because I am not sure that portion of the amendment should be imagined as extending to matters of private judgment, rather than state action, which makes me uncertain about what it means to talk about its spirit, rather than its letter. A religious test, like censorship, is peculiarly ominous when practiced by a state, which backs prejudice with legal sanction. But assume that there is a spirit of the Sixth Amendment, and for the sake of the argument, call its violation bigotry. Okay, is it bigoted to ask whether a subscriber to a religious doctrine is likely to surrender the power of his office to an unelected religious authority, to which he may think he owes great deference, or even absolute obedience? Pondering similar questions, non-Catholics long worried about voting for Catholic office-seekers. That sort of attitude is either prejudice or prudence, and the wisdom of entertaining the question depends on the time, the place, and the person. Very few Americans now imagine that a Catholic officeholder will inevitably take his marching orders from the pope, but if a very pious candidate of any persuasion subscribes to religious doctrines, I do not think it is unreasonable to ask him whether he will invariably defer to authorities whose legitimacy he seems to concede. I also think it is unreasonable to assume in advance that any answer in the negative is a lie. This is an interesting and sometimes urgent question, rarely a relevant one in modern America, but fearfully relevant in other places. When an Islamist party ran for office in Algeria, up to the last minute its adherents dodged the question of whether they would leave office if voted out, thus breaching God’s law in deference to human law. That was, alas, a reasonable question, and when, at the very last moment the Algerian Islamists claimed they would so defer, they were not believed, a military coup was launched, and a truly horrific civil war ensued. Recently a Turkish Islamist party answered the question the other way, was widely believed, and now governs Turkey, in many respects governing it very well. In the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution, it was hard to wholly fault even savage and kleptocratic Algerian generals for refusing to take on faith those very-last-minute protestations of deference to human law. As for America and Mitt Romney, I have no opinion in advance, because I know little if anything about the candidate or his church. It may be relevant to remember that from the atheist’s point of view, a believer’s passionate convictions do not necessarily prohibit supporting him for national office. Many American Presidents have been devout believers, were convinced that we were a light unto the nations, that a special Providence superintended our history, and that various hard things must be done in God’s name, and in a sense at his command: “If God wills that it [the Civil War] continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’” I know a fair number of atheists who’d have voted Republican that time.
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