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The Campaign Spectator
United Faiths of America
Obama and the secular left are creating an ecumenical right — again.
Conventional wisdom holds that Governor Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith was a boat anchor that reduced his potential support among Republican primary voters in 2008, and could undermine his campaign in the 2012 general election. This concern declined as Romney won solid primary victories and rapidly consolidated Republican support. Recent polls show him running neck and neck with President Obama in the November election.
But Romney’s faith could still be a factor—and one that helps him, not hurts him. Romney’s membership in a minority religious community with a history of suffering—very real and very recent religious persecution—opens up an opportunity for him to connect with voters as a credible advocate for the religious liberty of all Americans.
The modern Democrat party openly boasts that it will win in 2012 by dividing Americans—black against white; immigrant against native-born; poor against rich—with the “Buffett rule” and rhetoric against the “one percent.” That said, Obama has been in one key aspect the unifying President he claims to be. He and the aggressively secular left have in effect created an ecumenical movement in defense of religious liberty.
This has been most dramatically visible in Obamacare’s demand that Roman Catholic hospitals and charities—in the words of the letter read to most American Catholic parishes on Sunday, February 5—“be forced to offer their employees health coverage that includes sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs and contraception.”
The letter from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops also insists that “The federal government, which claims to be ‘of, by, and for the people’ has just dealt a heavy blow to almost a quarter of those people—the Catholic population.” It further states, “We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law. People of faith cannot be made second class citizens.”
Obama’s fight is not just with Catholics. As the letter stresses, “We are already joined by our brothers and sisters of all faiths and many others of good will in this important effort to regain our religious freedom.”
On a social-networking site, the evangelical Protestant Rev. Rick Warren posted, “I’m not a Catholic but I stand in 100 percent solidarity with my brothers and sisters to practice their belief against govt pressure,” and “I’d go to jail rather than cave in to a government mandate that violates what God commands us to do. Would you? Acts 5:29.”
At a conservative conference, Mike Huckabee said, “I remember very vividly when John F. Kennedy said that we are all Berliners. Well in many ways, thanks to President Obama, we are all Catholics now.”
Parallels with events that led to the Reagan victory in 1980 are dramatic. In the late 1970s the “religious right” of Falwell and Robertson fame developed when the Carter administration threatened to withdraw the tax deductibility of contributions to Christian private schools, and to use the FCC’s “Fairness Doctrine” to close Christian radio stations. Some argue those threats were exaggerated. But at the time, they were seen as very real. And, left unchallenged, Carter might have followed through on them in a second term.
As such, BCEC’s—Big City Ethnic Catholics—became available to Reagan and Republicans when they perceived hostility to Roman Catholic traditions and a strong pro-abortion movement within the Democrat party. That sense of embattlement, and the contempt establishment Democrats showed to southern Baptists and northern Catholics, drove many to begin to break free from the once-secure political moorings that flowed from the Civil War and the immigrant experience. In that way, the secular left created the religious right.
The new alliance was successful when it played defense and demanded religious liberty—the right to be left alone. When it was viewed as threatening or promoting one faith over others, it became a political liability and faltered. The 1980s debate over prayer in public schools highlights the difference. Many politicians looked at polling data that showed overwhelming public support for “prayer in school,” so they jumped on the bandwagon. But whose prayer? Religious minorities feared their faiths and children would be marginalized. Despite 90 percent support in theory, the issue could not get traction in Congress. But when the focus shifted to school choice and home-schooling, religious minorities were empowered rather than threatened. That movement for parental choice in education has united parents of all faiths and has made great inroads, most recently in Indiana and Louisiana.
THE MODERN DEMOCRAT PARTY is run by clever folks, but ones who are blinded by their own ignorance of and contempt for the various communities of faith. They expect them to be divided by their theological differences rather than united by a commitment to the First Amendment. (Democrats always seem to miss the power of the next amendment on the list as well.) They missed the storm petrels that foretold the 1980 Reagan win, and they are ignoring through mockery the concerns that Catholics and others now have about religious liberty.
A recent example of how religious minorities see an attack on one as an attack on all followed the campaign in the spring of 2010 to forbid the establishment of an Islamic Center in New York City. Channeling Martin Niemöller’s famous “first they came for…” lament, the Jewish Daily Forward published on August 11, 2010 a story titled “When Shuls were Banned in America.” The article explains that the 17th-century governor of New Amsterdam (now New York City) wanted to bar Jewish refugees, but he settled for a ban on synagogues instead. Jews were to practice their faith “in all quietness” and “within their houses.” In 1685, with the British now in control, New York City’s Common Council refused a request for a synagogue: “Publique worship is tolerated…but to those that professe faith in Christ.”
Ten days later—on August 21, 2010—the Salt Lake Tribune ran the headline “Living History: Mormonism’s ‘9/11 mosque moment’ came in 1903.” The anti-Mormon bigotry had surged in response to LDS apostle Reed Smoot’s appointment by the state legislature as U.S. Senator from Utah. Amid the drama, which included a national petition campaign and a four-year delay in seating Smoot in the Senate, the mayor of New York banned Mormon missionaries from preaching in his city.
Those on the left who are hostile to religious belief of any flavor see themselves as an embattled minority, and “organized religion” as the 800-pound gorilla. Thus they fail to understand that every single religious sect in America views itself as a minority with its own history of being picked on. According to 2008 statistics from the American Religious Identification Survey, the largest religious minority in the country is Roman Catholics, with 57 million adult members, or 25 percent of the adult population. There are 36 million adult Baptists (15.8 percent); 11 million adult Methodists (5 percent); 8.6 million adult Lutherans (3.8 percent); and 2.4 million adult Episcopalians/Anglicans (1.1 percent). Mormon adults weigh in at 3.1 million (1.4 percent); Jewish adults at 2.6 million (1.2 percent); and Muslim adults at 1.3 million (0.6 percent). Those who refuse to identify themselves as affiliated with any particular faith number 34 million (15 percent). Of those, 1.6 percent call themselves agnostic or atheist.
As Ralph Reed, the former leader of the Christian Coalition and now chair of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, points out, “The Obama administration’s hostility to religious liberty gives Romney a unique opportunity to appeal to evangelicals, Roman Catholics and others as a member of a religious minority that has experienced persecution and shares a fear of government oppression.”
Mitt Romney, as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a.k.a. the Mormon Church, has street cred when it comes to unifying all faiths in defense of religious liberty. Mormons live in Utah and not New York, Illinois, or Missouri, because folks were shooting at them as they headed west. In 1838 Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs actually issued an order that said Mormons “must be exterminated or driven from the state if necessary for the public peace.” That fatwa was not formally undone until 1976 when Republican governor Kit Bond did so at the request of Utah Senator Orrin Hatch.
About the Author
Grover G. Norquist is the president of Americans for Tax Reform.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (33) | Leave a comment
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Appleby| 6.28.12 @ 6:42AM
Mormons were chased out of New York for many of the reasons that conservatives are advising chasing the Muslims out of New York today. Yes, they suffered historically; no, they are not suffering now -- not the mainstream ones, anyway. Not that most people know the difference.
But I do agree that poking a stick at religious people is a bad idea, because it reminds them that Jesus said we would be persecuted, "deespitefully used" and bullied, as the prophets were before us, and some of us actually welcome a chance to stand up for our faith. Currently we Catholics are in the midst of "One Million Rosaries for Religious Freedom" and there are people praying on my subway train (including me) silently but visibly, who would generally never mention that they even have a religion, as "Gay Pride Week" has swamped our Canada Day celebrations in the city and the Canadian tradition of attempting to force minority views to be adopted by public figures with no thought of "tolerance" [redefined as Acceptance].
TLP| 6.28.12 @ 8:01AM
The Muslims are being chased out of New York?
They want to build a VICTORY MOSQUE within RPG distance of the site of their Greatest Victory over The Great Satan, and you're okay with that?
They Murdered 3,000 Innocent Men, Women, and CHILDREN, and it pains you to see them "Chased out of New York"? They Incinerated 3,000 Fathers, Mothers, Sons, and Brothers. Daughters and Sisters. Grandkids and their Grandparents, and you want to compare THEM to Human Beings, deserved of our pity?
Stop eating the Shrooms, Grandma.
Obviously, none of your Incestual Brood were lost on that day, or you wouldn't be saying the Stupid Sh*t you just did. How nice for you, that your family, conceived on various Pool Tables, in various Biker Bars, is okay, and can afford to have Compassion for the Animals that would just as soon Gut you like a Deer, and take a Sh*t in your Mouth, as you lay there Dying, as to look at you.
Now, why don't you climb back on your Lezbo Float, and make sure those clothespins on your nipples don't fall off.
You wanna be sure that you stay Sharia compliant.
Appleby| 6.28.12 @ 11:19AM
Sorry, inability to read has caused the above troll to elevate his blood pressure to dangerous heights and ramping up his name-calling to virtual incoherence in attempt to find something trenchant to say.
Sentence No. 1 reads, in part, "... that conservatives ARE ADVISING CHASING the Muslims out of New York today." Troll, please re-read and reformat your rant accordingly.
TLP| 6.28.12 @ 4:56PM
Same thing, you stupid old bag.
Don't play Semantics with me.
You're not qualified.
Le Cracquere| 6.28.12 @ 11:22AM
Finger off'n that trigger, Tex. You sure you know which way that thing even points?
TLP| 6.28.12 @ 4:58PM
STFU.
Who asked you, anyway?
Stupid Canuck.
Le Cracquere| 6.28.12 @ 5:09PM
Dear Algonquin Round Table: please call your office.
TLP| 6.28.12 @ 7:17PM
Dear any Psychiatric Hospital.
One for pickup.
THKrupp| 6.28.12 @ 6:13PM
TLP
Sorry but that was just uncalled for. I may not agree with Appleby all the time but shes a civil person. You completely misread what she wrote.
TLP| 6.28.12 @ 7:18PM
She's a MORON.
YOU SAW WHAT SHE WROTE.
She can Kiss My Ass.
Toinfinityandbeyond| 6.30.12 @ 7:56PM
This Tim TLP is truly parasite in USofA.
Time TLP doesn't respect anyone who has different opinions than his.
Hey. Time! How is your mommy doing?
After I did your mommy, she liked it so much, she said she wants to have my baby!
Tim TLP!
Behave! you fag!
Hahahahahahaha
Occam's Tool| 6.28.12 @ 10:26AM
Norquist is a vicious antisemite married to a Palestinian Muslim.
Le Cracquere| 6.28.12 @ 11:24AM
Even if he isn't, he spends an uncommon amount of his time trying to make America safe for them. That doesn't invalidate the argument in his article above, but TAS readers who spot his name on a byline are best advised to take it always with a pillar of salt.
RCV| 6.28.12 @ 8:34PM
We agree on that point, Occam. Norquist is scum.
Joellen| 6.28.12 @ 11:15AM
I recommend everyone go to Pewsitter.com and watch the video that depicts whats going on in Dearborn, Michagan. What you will witness is quite disturbing, going on right here in America. Go quickly before it is pulled from its site. Christians are being STONED by Muslims at a fair and the cops will not help the Christians, instead they put the onus on them. Watch it to believe it.
Anthony| 6.28.12 @ 7:54AM
I would prefer to say, we are all Freedom Fighters after today. America at the brink, Obozo and his faithless hordes at the gate.
MK48| 6.28.12 @ 2:51PM
Anthony......Americra need not fear so much the enemy at the gate, but high vigilance must be paid to the enemys from with in.
TLP| 6.28.12 @ 7:25PM
Indeed.
If the Secret Service had any integrity?
They would uphold their OATH, as did their Praetorian Guard Ancestors, and take this Domestic Enemy Emperor OUT, to Preserve The Empire.
I'm just sayin.
Von Mises Jr| 6.28.12 @ 8:01AM
Liberals, Progressives and Socialist of all flavors hate organized religion since they believe that they are gods. This is what "collective salvation" is all about.
We understand socialism as central planning and redistribution of wealth, but at the heart of it, they must have your soul. You must obey the statist mandates for the good of society based on their conscience. But colonist came to America for their individual right of conscience and religion.
So the answer is simple. We should send the Socialist to somewhere such as North Korea or Cuba where they can practice their faith in Socialism, or to an Islamic country where they can adhere to Sharia. Problem solved.
c. j. acworth| 6.28.12 @ 8:35AM
Whatever your take on Mormon theology and doctrine, no one I know believes for an instant that Romney intends to impose Mormonism on America. Obama on the other hand is doing everything he can to force his belief system down our throats, and it ain't Christianity or even Islam, its the worship of government generally and Himself specifically.
Appleby| 6.28.12 @ 11:21AM
I don't believe that Romney will attempt to make us a Mormon theocracy. My problem with him is that he sincerely believes he will become a God when he's dead, create his own planet, and populate it (along with his harem of wives) with people who will worship him. I don't want a man in that seat who will be making decisions on how it will affect his future godhood.
Le Cracquere| 6.28.12 @ 11:29AM
You could spin speculative scenarios like that around presidents of any religion. Even respectable Christian denominations have doctrines that a Chief Executive MIGHT allow to affect his conduct in office ... if he were a moron.
MK48| 6.28.12 @ 3:26PM
Appleby............so you would rather have a muslium making decisions......and their godhood?
TLP is right thoes clothespins have cut off the blood to your head.
It would be like saying if the president was a catholic I couldn't vote for him because he could have a special place in his heart for little boys.
I think you qualify for my dad's favorite saying....."you talk like a man with a paper assho*e".
Oh and by the way whats wrong with Valencia, CA you couldn't fit in? Stepford Wives was your reason I think.......no clothespin lunch's there ?
TLP| 6.28.12 @ 5:00PM
Nice.
Thanks for the backup, buddy.
MK48| 6.28.12 @ 7:47PM
I always thought it was part of the oath"no one left behind".
Us vets have to stick together........you know when the sh*t hits the fan "they" know who won't back down......tap..tap..tap.
Those of you who don't know what that means my SEAL buddy says it's 2 to the chest and 1 to the head.
TLP| 6.28.12 @ 7:31PM
WTF is wrong with you?
We've got an avowed Marxist Muslim, in the Oval Office, who is COMPLICITE in the Murders of Hundreds of Innocent Mexican Men, Women, and Children, to push forward his dream of DISARMING American Citizens, and who is doing EVERYTHING IN HIS POWER, to Destroy Israel, in the name of his Sick God - Allah
Wake the Fck up, you stupid old bag!
How Fcking Stupid are you, anyway?
Occam's Tool| 6.28.12 @ 10:28AM
Anybody care to dispute my views that 99% of the lawyers in Washington, DC are Vermin and Scum today? Justice Roberts especially.
Appleby| 6.28.12 @ 11:22AM
Anybody care to dispute the fact that these are in fact the End Times, and that Christians are in for a lot more of this kind of persecution before the Glorious Appearance?
MK48| 6.28.12 @ 3:30PM
And what direct line do you have with the Father that the rest of us don't have to say these are end times......and just what are you if I may ask.
MK48| 6.28.12 @ 3:33PM
Oh Ya.......a Catholic
Toinfinityandbeyond| 6.30.12 @ 7:58PM
Hey Occam's Tool!
Justice Roberts is better than you in millions of way.
Don't be a FAG!
Petronius| 6.28.12 @ 10:57AM
The population of this country must decide to restore civilization or succumb to the twisted tropes of depravity that ruined Rome and all the dynasties since. And that cannot be accomplished by voting because Conservatives have no place to go on election day. At the back of the current regime is an alliance devoted only to fornication and theft who's leader has proclaimed, "le tat ces moi" to the rest of Us. They control all the institutional authority and We have all the risk. And the blue bloods who run the Republican Central Committee have no stomach for fighting because liberalism does not affect them or they don't care. The Christian communities have spent the past half century accommodating these professional sinners who have turned on them now that they have no use for their influence anymore. And except for the fundies, who know a snake when they see one, they still want to have it both ways. The end will come for True Christians in our time as it did for the Christians who met martyrdom at the hands of despots. The savages won't wait much longer to be unleashed.
Quartermaster| 6.29.12 @ 8:21AM
There were good reasons that Mormons were driven from Kirtland, OH, and the Independence, MO area, then finally Nauvoo, IL. The Mormons made an attempt on Boggs' life, among other activities that made them odious to their naeighbors, the Mormon leadership was wanted for numerous crimes in Nauvoo (Young went to Winter Quarters to evade arrest), and Smith engaged in a banking scam in Kirtland (his "bank" had no specie to back the banknotes it issued).
In all, the Mormons were not persecuted. Criminal activity caused the pursuit or banishment where ever they went. They brought it on themselves.