My Concerns With Romney Have Nothing to Do With His Religion
Posted on December 6, 2007
I didn’t listen to it, nor am I interested. Romney’s religion has never been an issue with me. I heard it was a beautiful speech. I heard Rush Limbaugh raving about it. Hugh Hewitt, Romney cheerleader, thinks it was one of the most ingenious speeches ever! Other analysis is more thought provoking.
It must have been a smashing hit. Even the ACLU gave it good reviews.
Today’s speech by presidential candidate Mitt Romney provides an excellent opportunity for all Americans to consider the appropriate role of faith in public life. While religious expression is a valued and protected part of the First Amendment rights guaranteed to all citizens, as is the right to speak about it, the Constitution also mandates that government stay out of the business of promoting religion.
The following can be attributed to T. Jeremy Gunn, Director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief:
“The Constitution’s First Amendment guarantees that all Americans, including political candidates, have a right to talk about religion and their religious beliefs. But it is essential to remember the U.S. Constitution has also been clear, for more than two hundred years, that ‘no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.’ As the candidates highlight their religious credentials in the coming months, we should keep in mind that the constitutional ban on religious tests protects everyone’s liberty – including Americans of all faiths, or no faith at all. The Founders were deeply concerned about religious pandering, hypocrisy, insincerity, and the trivializing of religion for political ends, and they wisely rejected any religious requirements for public service.”
Perhaps this speech really was needed. Maybe there really were that many people that thought his being Mormon was a problem. Do you think this speech convinced those people otherwise? Most likely, not. Anyway…like I said. I didn’t listen to it. My concerns with Mitt have nothing to do with his religion.
This is where I point you all to.
Mitt Romney’s religion is only part of his problem. A bigger threat to his Republican presidential candidacy, advisers say, is a record of policy flip-flops and nagging doubts about his credibility.
And so Romney’s highly anticipated address Thursday was as much about his character as his Mormonism. He used an intensely personal issue — his religion — to address voters’ concerns about his authenticity and integrity, about the strength of his convictions.
No single speech is likely to fix such a big concern.
That pin-points it. If you don’t know what flip-flops he needs to address….see below. Did he really change his mind on that many issues?
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, ACLU, Church And State, History, News, Politics As Usual, Video
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11 Responses to “My Concerns With Romney Have Nothing to Do With His Religion”
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You use the term “flip-flops” where I would say he lacks integrity (i.e., “the quality or state of being complete or undivided”). He only “believes” in what he thinks will get him elected. When I look at Mitt Romney or listen to him speak to discover what is there, I realize there is no “there” there, only words picked from a wheel of politically advantageous terms, polished and placed before his audience like pretty glass beads before magpies. His “principles” are like leaves blown by political winds.
He is fluff, cotton candy, lacking any substance of his own to anchor him or be of any real worth.
I watched his speech and have blogged about it. I found it one of the most moving testaments to the American spirit I’ve ever heard or read. For me, it also summarized the essence of Mitt Romney the person, the businessman, the volunteer, the candidate. And I could care less about his religious affiliation.
There is a reason those who so viciously attack Mitt Romney must do so via generalities, misquotes and assumptions. And his speech today illustrated that reason.
From what I heard Romney is a Secularist pretending to be a Mormon. That Government over God speech of his gave it away.
Seems to me Romney is a politician. He comes across as having as an opportunist, changing his beliefs to whatever is politically convenient. That isn’t an attack, just how he comes across to me. Watch the videos, and defend against them if you are a Mitt fan.
Mitt Romney says his faith guides him on everything.
What baloney!
This is a man who embraced abortion on demand, promoting to school kids in mASSachusetts sodomy and other sexual perversions, screwing the Boy Scouts at the Olympics, and rolling over for sodomite ‘marriage’ in his state.
Mitt Romney is a slick and well-spoken opportunist, who consistently tells different groups of voters whatever he thinks they want to hear.
Mitt Romeny says a child deserves a mother and a father. Then why did he roll over when the Massachusetts government forced the Catholic Church there to give up its adoption agency, because it refused to turn children over to sodomites to be raised?
The only thing you can be sure of with Mitt is that if he needs your vote, you’ll hear exactly what you want to hear. Same with this religion speech.
The man has no internal integrity whatsoever, but he is very smart.
He is a lot like - Bill Clinton.
James
Its been interesting reading the blogs that “didn’t” like Romney’s speech. The gist seems to be Romney’s “Faith in America” speech didn’t address the faithless or Romney’s no good because he’s a convert on issues like abortion. Apparently politics isn’t the art of the possible, but a haven for the rigid and doctrinaire. The misrepresentations and distortions of Romney’s record also don’t actually serve to convince anyone except of the fact that the writer is overwrought and perhaps a little scared.
I agree that we should elect a conservative, but what is more important? Touting conservative credentials or running as a conservative? The latter spells mandate, the former spells Anthony Kennedy. I’m less interested in what Romney may have done or been forced to do for the sake of political expediency in liberal Massachusetts, than what policy he is actually running on, his character and his skills.
We are facing difficult times, and my (our?) experience with George W. Bush demonstrates that having one’s heart in the right place is not enough. We need a president who is not only articulate, but can communicate the underlying reasons why a policy is the right thing for the country. I was blown away by the Romney speech yesterday, not because it worked for him politically (which remains to be seen) but because he demonstrated an uncanny ability to communicate effectively on a subject that people generally consider a minefield. Its a quality that a Republican president needs, because if he is depending on subordinate or worse, the media, he will get eaten alive and the party will suffer enormously.
I think its an incredible gift to have been given such a talented candidate in times that demand those talents. If Romney doesn’t get elected, its more than a missed opportunity, its a crime.
“I’m less interested in what Romney may have done or been forced to do for the sake of political expediency in liberal Massachusetts, than what policy he is actually running on, his character and his skills.”
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You don’t get it, do you, Mike. A man who accepts evil for the sake of political expediency has no character.
James
James almost had it right with, “A man who accepts evil for the sake of political expediency has no character.”
James, he does have character; it’s just not of a sort that any decent person can respect. “Political expediancy” is the excuse of a politician who has no conviction of right and wrong, only “convictions” led by what he thinks will gain him the most power, influence, etc.
Again, when I look at Mitt Romney to see what’s there, I see no “there” there at all, just poll-driven pablum for the sheeple.
Jay - I started to watch these videos, but noticed that all of them lift sentences out of context, sometimes stopping Romney’s words mid-sentence. The National Democratic Party has offered a ’slice and dice’ program for activists to ‘create’ videos (link to discussion here - http://www.bluemassgroup.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9546).
I worked with, although not for, Romney in the State House. You never see videos about his abolition of the MDC, a huge patronage haven, or his firing of corrupt Billy Bulger, former Senate President, and brother of FBI’s most wanted killer. No, you see sentences taken out of context in SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD video clips.
I would submit that becoming more conservative over the course of 17 years isn’t exactly a flip-flop.
I would submit that becoming more conservative over the course of 17 years isn’t exactly a flip-flop.
Then submit evidence that he has actually become more conservative. That would of course involve anything he has done rather than what he says he advocates.
OK. I alrady mentioned the abolition of the Metropolitan District Commission and the firing of Bulger (his brother is the Jack Nicholson charachter in ‘The Departed’).
When he came into office, he had a $3 billion defecit. He was able to square the books by consolidating hundreds of rat’s-nest state agencies and eliminate managers - for instance, when he came into office, Health and Human Services had seventeen seperate agencies, all with overlapping mandates and paid staff. When he left, there were five agencies. He also ran a surplus every year, and filled up the Rainy Day fund to $2 BILLION, by vetoing Democrat pork over and over - which I regard as George Bush’s single greatest failing.
He created the John and Abigail Adams scholarships which would give kids with a high GPA free tuition at state colleges, but he also vetoed a bill to allow illegal immigrants in-state tuition rates, and he had that veto sustained.
He reformed drunk driving laws in the Commonwealth, along with the first update of organ donor laws in 22 years, making it easier for donors to have their wishes respected.
When a bill came across his desk to allow over-the-counter RU-486 and morning after pills, he vetoed it, saying it was a change in abortion laws which he had pledged not to change when he took office. Libs were furious - more liberal was not a change to them, but it was to Mitt - and THAT veto was sustained as well.
After a stem cell bill was introduced in 2005, he vetoed it, with changes. He could not prevent the bill from passing, but the changes were incorporated. For instance, a provision that women could not be paid for eggs or genetic material, to prevent poor women from becoming egg factories for researchers.
Every year, he filed a bill to reduce the state income tax to 5%, which the voters had passed in 2000, and which the Legislature - 93% Democrat - refuses to honor.
These are just things from my personal knowledge. There is plenty more if you look beyond the Boston Globe and MSM who are out to stifle the most electable candidate agaisnt Hillary Clinton - after all, he DID become Governor of Mass. by beating Dem. State Treasurer Shannon O’Brien - in Massachusetts, yet!