Friday, February 08, 2008

I Hate This   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

From WSJ:

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll in late January revealed that 50% of Americans said they would have reservations or be "very uncomfortable" about a Mormon as president.

And from Steven Waldman at Beliefnet:

Was Romney's religion a big factor in his political fortunes? Here's a data point: the online survey Beliefnet did a couple of weeks ago asked evangelicals whether the religious beliefs of any candidate would make thems more or less likely to vote for a particular candidate. 35.6% of conservative evangelicals them said Romney's religious beliefs would make them less likely to support him, compared to 15% who said so for McCain.

By the way, those Democrats who might chortle that Republican intolerance cost them their best candidate, our survey found that almost as many Democrats would vote against Romney because of his religion. Intolerance of Mormons seems to be bipartisan.

I repeat: I do not believe that Mitt Romney is not the nominee because of his religion. I do, however, think it was a problem. And that is offensive to our very Founding. Someone out there needs to have some deep discussions on religious liberty, religion and public life, conservatives and ecumenical coalitioning ... And someone ought to mark the important marker Romney set in speaking on these issues in his religion speech in December — as well as fighting for religious liberty while governor of Massachusetts.

02/08 10:54 AMShare