Passing the ‘No Religious Test’ Test
aviewfromthehinterland.blogspot.com
In 2008 we elected as our President an African-American Christian with an Arabic name and a Muslim father. As we all know, there were people who believed then and there are people who believe now, all evidence to the contrary, that President Obama is in fact a Muslim.
Some folks who accepted candidate Obama’s long-term participation in a Chicago Christian congregation as evidence enough—as if his own testimony was not sufficient—of his Christian faith nonetheless used the preaching of his pastor as political ammunition against him.
My point is that, while the United States Constitution prohibits any religious test for an office holder, that’s not going to stop pundits and voters from applying one.
In the mid-1970s I asked my late great father, who would these days be considered something akin to a Blue Dog Democrat, for whom he had voted in the 1960 presidential election. He looked sheepish as he said, “I’m not ashamed that I voted for Nixon but I am ashamed of why; I was afraid if Kennedy got elected the Pope would be running the country.”
I find it interesting, given the Cold War in which we were engaged at the time, that my father and others did not find Nixon’s Quaker religious affiliation equally or even more troubling, given that faith’s belief in pacifism.
Of course, President Nixon was not a pacifist, was he?
And President Kennedy was not, when it came to his policies, beholden to the Vatican, was he?