The American Spectator

p> UNFOUNDED br> Re: Paul Chesser’s Prejudiced for Eternity and Reader Mail’s Mormons in America : /p>

I find these ongoing discussions about Governor Romney’s faith wearisome, and James Walker’s fear that a Mormon as president would cause a rush of worldwide conversions to that faith both unfounded and paranoid. Some Evangelicals hold certain beliefs with which I as a Roman Catholic disagree. It doesn’t mean that I won’t vote for the best conservative candidate for president, whether he be Catholic, Baptist, Pentecostal, Methodist, Mormon or Jewish. We need a president who will stand up for America in the international arena and uphold the traditions (or the American Creed, as Huntington puts it) that have made her great. I hardly see how, with the safeguards put in place by our Constitution, fortified by numerous court decisions, that having a Mormon, Catholic, Evangelical or Jew, as president poses any threat to the Republic. They all must take an oath to uphold the Constitution.

p>In twenty-two years in the Air Force I had the good fortune to serve and fly with Mormons, and I found them to be among the most honest, and honorable, of comrades-in-arms (notwithstanding Harry Reid’s cheap shots and clownish political theatrics). These ongoing assaults on Mr. Romney’s faith, and he is a man of faith, reek of bigotry, and only serve to undermine the right’s efforts to oppose the real danger posed by the left’s rabid secularization and its hatred of America and all things religious. If some Evangelicals are so blinded by self-regard as to not see this and abandon the Republican nominee, whoever he might be, then they can damn well take the blame for the increase in attacks on Christianity and the acceleration of the moral, ethical and cultural decay in this country that will most assuredly occur under a Clinton, Edwards or Obama presidency. br> — Paul DeSisto br> Cedar Grove, New Jersey /p> p>