Public image of Mitt Romney

U.S. 2008 Presidential candidate Mitt Romney

Religion in the life and background of Mitt Romney has been extensively covered by the mainstream media, especially in connection with his 2008 presidential campaign. Mitt Romney is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), more commonly known as Mormons.

In addition to missionary work in France in the 1960s, Romney has served as a part-time lay minister, called a "bishop," and has also been a stake president in his church. As part of his religious belief, Romney abstains from alcohol and smoking.

Family religion

Mitt Romney's great-great-grandfather, Parley P. Pratt, was among the first leaders of the LDS Church in the early 19th century. His first cousin once removed Marion George Romney, was an Apostle of LDS Church. Mitt Romney's father, George W. Romney, was a patriarch of LDS Church. Mitt's wife Ann converted to Mormonism before they were married in 1969. Ann's family could not attend their wedding ceremony that was held at a temple, due to a rule preventing non-Mormons from entering LDS temples, but they attended another ceremony held for non-Mormons.

Polygamy remains an image problem for the LDS Church, although it renounced the practice over 100 years ago. Romney has denounced polygamy, and is a proponent of monogamous, heterosexual marriage:

There is nothing more awful, in my view, than the violation of the marriage covenant that one has with one’s wife. The practice of polygamy is abhorrent, it’s awful, and it drives me nuts that people who are polygamists keep pretending to use the umbrella of my church....My church abhors it, it excommunicates people who practice it, and it's got nothing to do with my faith.

Romney's paternal great-grandparents practiced plural marriage, and went to Mexico in 1884 after an 1878 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld laws banning polygamy. Due to legal pressure by the U.S. federal government, the LDS church renounced polygamy in 1890. Mitt's father, George, was born in Mexico in 1907, and was brought to the United States in 1912 by Mitt's grandparents. Subsequent generations of Romney's paternal lineage have been monogamous, and none of his mother's Mormon ancestors appear to have been polygamists.

Mormonism was not an issue in his father's presidential campaign in 1968, for several possible reasons: he dropped out before it could become one, the candidacy of John F. Kennedy (a Catholic) had neutralized the religion issue, religion generally was not a major stump issue, and the LDS Church was much smaller then.

Presidential campaign

Main article: Mitt Romney presidential campaign, 2008

Religion has played a major role in the 2008 presidential campaign, with polls indicating that a quarter of Republican voters are "less likely" to vote for a presidential candidate who is Mormon. Among other criticisms, some evangelical voters view the LDS Church as a cult. However, some social conservatives and evangelicals criticize Romney for not being Mormon enough, regarding social policy. He has avoided speaking publicly about specific church doctrines, and has pointed out that the U.S. Constitution prohibits religious tests for public office. Declining to discuss details about his religion also reduces the risk that doctrinal differences will alienate evangelical Christian voters. Romney has instead addressed religion in general, saying that as president he would "need the prayers of the people of all faiths," and that he would "serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest. A president must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States."

Mitt Romney is the third U.S. presidential candidate of the Mormon faith to have a high likelihood of achieving a major political party's nomination. The first of these three was Romney's own father, George W. Romney, a progressive on Civil Rights who was the savior of American Motors Corporation. George Romney, while governor of Michigan, stood in 1967 as a popular alternative to Richard M. Nixon for the Republican nomination.

The second was Mo Udall, the liberal Arizona congressman. He gained considerable support throughout the 1976 primary race as a rival to Jimmy Carter, who campaigned as a devout evangelical. During the latter part of Udall's campaign, Udall faced criticism from black activists concerning the fact that the church stated as Udall's religious affiliation, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, barred blacks from holding its lay priesthood. (This policy was changed in 1978.) In response to this criticism, Udall withdrew nominal affiliation with the denomination in 1976.

Differing from Udall, Mitt Romney is a social conservative. Paralleling Udall's rivalry with the outspokenly evangelical candidate Jimmy Carter, one of Romney's chief rivals in 2007 was also a self-professing evangelical and former Southern governor, Mike Huckabee.

"Faith in America" speech

Mitt Romney's delivered his "Faith in America" speech on December 6, 2007 at the George Herbert Walker Bush Presidential Library, with an introduction by this former president. The speech, which was widely regarded as evoking that of then-Senator John F. Kennedy's September 1960 pledge not to allow Catholic doctrine to inform policy, discussed the role of religion in American society and politics.

While the speech was perceived as a response to Huckabee's mercurial rise in the polls in late November within first caucusing Iowa, soon to cast ballots on January 3 (in which likely caucus goers are deemed to be over 40-per-cent evangelical), with commentators opining that Romney hoped it would effectively answer the media's longtime pre-occupation with the hurdle manifested by Romney's heterodox faith, Romney's campaign billed the speech as extolling American freedom of worship while helping to satisfy public curiosity about how Romney's strain of religious devotion would inform presidential governance. After the speech was delivered, Romney's advisors told reporters, off the record, that Romney had said that through this speech he wanted to address his "comma problem": the common practice to put next to his name in media reports, "(comma) who is a Mormon (comma)."

Romney's speech gives primacy to the American Constitutional right of religious liberty, which produces cultural diversity and vibrancy of dialog. He called for public acknowledgments of God such as within Holidays religious displays. Romney said, "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom.". He cited a religious nature to historic abolitionists' campaigns, the campaign for American Civil Rights, and the contemporary campaign for the Right to Life. Romney advocated maintenance of a separation of Church and State, stating that he, as president, would decline directives from churches' hierarchies, including that of the Mormon church.

Romney said while there are those who would prefer he indicated he holds his LDS faith merely as a tradition, in actual fact he believes in his faith and tries to live according to its teachings, and while sacraments and confession of Romney's "church's beliefs about Christ may not all be the same as those of other faiths," he still holds Christ "the Son of God and Savior of mankind." Romney declined to address further the specifics of his Mormonism, incorrectly implying that any compulsion to do so would counter the Constitutional prohibition of a religion test for political office.

Criticisms

In the speech Romney said, “I saw my father march with Martin Luther King.” Some weeks later, the Romney campaign, when asked for the specifics, indicated this to have been an NAACP-sponsored procession in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, led by George W. Romney. However there are conflicting accounts as to whether King was present at this march.

While the speech received wide praise, Eugene Robinson has argued that Romney implied that non-religious people cannot be proper Americans, and called that assertion "a form of bigotry;" MSNBC's Keith Olbermann called the speech a "shameful and shameless self-comparison to the thirty-fifth president."

In an interview with Newsweek, Romney said, "I don't think I defined religious liberty....it includes all, all forms of personal conviction....The people who don't have a particular faith have a personal conviction. I said all forms of personal conviction. And personal conviction includes a sense of right and wrong and any host of beliefs someone might have. Obviously in this nation our religious liberty includes the ability to believe or not believe."

University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey R. Stone argues that America's Founding Fathers, as freethinkers whose ideals sprung more from the Enlightenment, were reacting to the pieties of Colonial-era Dissenters from Anglicanism (as arising from the Reformation/Counter-Reformation) more than they were expressing these pieties. Historian Jan Shipps finds Mitt's reference to the Founders' piety as quintessentially Mormon.

Responses from Republican candidates

After the speech, one of the two current Republican front runners, Rudolph Giuliani said that Romney had done "what he had to do." Said Giuliani. "It would be better if he didn't have to do that."

On the Today show, Huckabee used Romney's speech as an opportunity to emphasize his own "authentic" views as did Fred Thompson in a radio interview in Iowa. Sen. John McCain acknowledged in an interview with ABC News, being locked up with atheist POWs, who, nevertheless, were 'patriots'.

On Fox News Sunday, Huckabee said it was inappropriate for voters to consider the tenets of Mormonism in judging Romney's candidacy, but rather should judge Romney on his record.

Republican candidate and ideological Libertarian Ron Paul released a statement saying that while Paul feels uncomfortable talking about his faith in the political arena, he supports religious tolerance, comes to his own faith through Jesus Christ, and believes any attacks implying Romney unfit to serve only due to Romney's faith "fly in the face of everything America stands for."

Response to "Mormon question" in Boca Raton

During the Boca Raton debate on January 24, 2008, NBC anchor Brian Williams asked Romney: "Governor, we've got [a poll...] in the morning that says... 44 percent of respondents say a Mormon president would have a difficult time uniting the country....."

--to which Romney replied:

"You know, I just don't believe that people in this country are going to choose their -- their candidate based on which church he or she goes to. I just don't believe that.

"And you know, polls ask people a lot of questions, and my faith isn't terribly well known around this country, but I don't think for a minute the American people are going to say, you know what, we're not going to vote for this guy for a secular position because of his church. I just don't believe it.

"I think when the Constitution and the founders said no religious test shall ever be required for qualification for office or public trust in these United States that the founders meant just that. And I don't believe for a minute that Republicans, or Americans for that matter, are going to impose a religious test when the founders said it's as un-American as anything you can think of.

"And so I believe that I'll ultimately get the nomination. I can't be sure of that, but I'm -- I'm pretty confident. And I believe in a head-to-head with Hillary Clinton the differences in our perspectives on how to get America going again and how to get us on the right track are as different as night and day. She takes her inspiration from the Europe of old, Big Brother, big government and big taxes. I take mine from Republican ideals: small government, small taxes, individual freedom. I believe that free American people are the source of America's greatness.

"And so I don't think you're going to see religion figuring into this race after people have had a chance to get to know all the candidates."

Voting guide released by "Focus on the Family"

A video voting guide released in January 2008 by James Dobson's Focus on the Family reviews Romney favorably. Within the video, a public policy expert for the group, Tom Minnery, states his contention that Romney "has acknowledged that Mormonism is not a Christian faith." Minnery bases this contention on the quote from Romney's December speech on faith where Romney said "religions differ on their beliefs about Christ" and "each religion has its own unique doctrines." Minnery said he had spoken with the Romney campaign after posting the video and his contention was not contested nor was he asked for a retraction. "We've got a good relationship with them," he added. Meanwhile campaign spokesman Kevin Madden referred to Romney's faith speech to answer media inquiries as to whether the candidate believes himself a Christian.

External links

• Mitt Romney's "Faith in America" speech (Google video)
• "Tabernacle on trial: Mormons dismayed by harsh spotlight," by Suzanne Sataline
• "When Romney was a bishop," by Philip Barlow
• "Romney and JFK: The difference" by Garry Wills
• "What does Mormonism mean to Mitt?" by Mathew Bowman
• "What is it about Mormonism?" by Noah Feldman
• "Should Mormons hate Huckabee?" by Russell Arben Fox
• "Why the Religious Right is stuck with McCain: The lukewarm support for Mitt Romney left a void that evangelical preacher Mike Huckabee was only too happy to fill. The result: A GOP nominee who strays far from the flock" by Daniel Gilgoff