MITT'S MUDDLE

MITT'S MUDDLE

Mitt Romney went to Texas yesterday to allay voters' concerns about his religion. John F. Kennedy went to Texas forty-seven years ago to do the same thing. Kennedy succeeded. Romney failed. 

Here's why. 

JFK's speech was a clarion call for separation between church and state. He did not equivocate or temporize, and he annoyed many in the Catholic hierarchy by not doing so. He said that he believed "in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute." This absolute separation meant that "no church or church school" would be "granted any public funds or political preference." It meant that "no prelate" or "minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote." It provided a standard against which the consistency of his own votes "against an ambassador to the Vatican, against unconstitutional aid to parochial schools, and against any boycott of the public schools" could be measured, a standard which -- in his public life -- Kennedy clearly met. 

Now listen to Romney yesterday at Texas A&M. No absolutism there. He said "I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us . . . from God." On his conduct in public office, he proclaimed that he "tried to do the right as best" he knew it, and while offering that he had never "confuse[d] the particular teachings of [his]church with the obligations of [his] office," he also asserted that "in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It's as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America -- the religion of secularism. They are wrong." He proudly proclaimed his belief that "Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind." Finally, invoking our constitutional beginnings, he claimed, "The founders proscribed the establishment of a state religion, but they did not countenance the elimination of religion from the public square." 

It is a speech JFK never would have given. In fact, it is a speech neither Lincoln nor the founders would have given either. It is also a bad speech. Not because it will not do what it was designed to do for his Presidential campaign, which is to allay the irrational fears evangelicals have of Mormons. And not because it also will not allay the fears of the dreaded "secularists," about whose fears Romney cares not a whit. Instead, it is a bad speech because it is false as a matter of history and dangerous as a matter of policy, matters of which Kennedy was clearly cognizant and Romney is not. 

The history of church - state separation has been bastardized of late, and that is no accident. The evangelicals are intent on re-writing it to agree with their own views. On this re-writing, the founders become religious devotees when in fact they were nearly all deists who rejected trinitarian doctrine, came of age (as Garry Wills points out in his recent book, Head and Heart) during a fairly secular period in American history when religion was descendant rather than ascendant (a reality which changed shortly after their passing and which had emerged only shortly after their births), and actually succeeded is implementing disestablishment, a by no means certain outcome in a world where, at the founding, the states had established churches which received tax funds. It also took awhile. Massachusetts, for example, home to Mitt and JFK, did not disestablish the Congregational Church until the 1830s. 

In truth, the founders were what Romney and today's religious right would call "secularists." So was Lincoln. They were all perfectly comfortable referring to God, and even contemplating the mystery of God (which Lincoln's Second Inaugural does in spades), but they never substituted an appeal to God's judgment (which is more or less unknowable, as a practical matter) for their own. In that, they followed the advice of the Jesuits who taught me in high school: "Pray as if everything depends on God, but act as if everything depends on you." So, as a practical matter, for Jefferson and Lincoln, God was "eliminated from" the "public square," or at least from that part of the public square which created laws and politics. 

Romney and the religious right will truck with none of this. It is apostasy. JFK expressly said that religion -- "what kind of church he believed in" -- should be important "only to [him]," and refused to discuss the subject. Romney -- perhaps intending to out-paster Paster Huckabee -- proclaimed (and remember, this was a campaign speech by a guy running for President) Jesus as the Son of God and Savior of Mankind. JFK's point was that no one should care about this. Romney's is that everyone must. Romney also repeated the shopworn bromides the religious right now trots out every time it discusses the subject. So, the former Governor of Massachuseets claims that we are a nation "Under God", even though the anti-communists of the '50s -- not the founders -- were the authors of these words. 

The "public square" is also a funny place in Mitt's world. A large chunk of the public appears not to be part of it (God must need a lot of room). Romney asserted that "Americans tire of those who would jettison their beliefs." And who, precisely, would that be? The dreaded secularists? Certainly. Pro-choice divorced Catholics like me? Who vote for Democrats? Gone. Perhaps not "removed" from the public square like the God we ostensibly refuse to invite to the party, but decidedly on the sidelines, like the boring kids in high school, just so . . . tiresome. Something of a blown dry hipster himself, Romney is a perfect incarnation of the populist religio-media age in which we now live. God is cool, with it, a ratings buster (for God's sake). Check out those Sunday morning televangelist broadcasts from "churches" larger than concert halls and louder than the Super Bowl at halftime, and then go ahead and try to talk yourself into the notion that more people are watching "Meet the Press." If you really think Tim is getting more action than the preachers, you must be among those belief-jettisoners with whom the hipsters have just grown tired. 

Kennedy attacked the then sacred cows of 1960 Catholic politics. Aid to parochial schools? He was against it. (This was not a popular position in middle and working class Boston, Chicago or New York, where thousands of kids like me were going to Catholic schools. ) An ambassador to and diplomatic status for the Vatican? He was against that too, to the consternation of many of my co-religionists. 

Mitt said he'd never take orders from the Mormon bishops, but he didn't name one policy favored by the religious right that he would oppose. How about President Bush's faith based inititatives, which funnel taxpayer money to religious groups engaged in ostensibly non-religious projects (like drug counseling), which are nothing but subsidies for religious organizations (the money they would have spent on counseling, now provided by the fed, can be re-directed to proselytizing)? Kennedy would never have been for this, or for the open electioneering which now goes on as religious leaders tell their followers how to vote. Romney was silent on both counts. And he has already flip-flopped on the mother of all quasi-religious issues, abortion. Formerly pro-choice, Romney is now avowedly pro-life. Kennedy's policies were opposed in many instances to his religious interests. Romney seems intent on demonstrating that his are compelled by those interests. 

In Texas forty seven years ago, on the subject of religion, Kennedy was principled, unyielding, and right. In Texas yesterday, on the same subject, Romney showed a lot of profile but not much courage. And he was wrong.