A Mormon president?

It may be hard to believe, but the 2008 campaign for president is already underway. Although the first primary elections and caucuses won’t be until next January, those candidates with their hat in the ring must raise funds and prove to possible donors that they are viable, strong, and can win. Naturally, leading the Democratic pool of candidates is Hillary Clinton, being pursued by Barack Obama, John Edwards, Bill Richardson, and Joe Biden. Republicans are countering with Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Sam Brownback, Duncan Hunter, and Mitt Romney.

Mitt Romney announced his candidacy at a special event at Dearborn’s Henry Ford Museum. He chose this site because of its focus on innovation and invention, and because of the candidate’s belief that America needs to step up to the challenges of the future by similar emphasis on technological advance. Mr. Romney is the son of former Michigan governor George Romney. He became a household name in America by being the head of the successful 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic games, and then served one term as governor of Massachusetts. As governor in an uber-liberal state like that, Romney made statements which seem to link him to positions on abortion and gay marriage that would be unacceptable to most evangelical Christians. Now that he is running for president, another aspect of his background has come into question.

You see, Mitt Romney is a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints—a Mormon. And much like the election of 1960 made Americans ask if the United States was ready for a Catholic president (John F. Kennedy) because one would wonder if the president’s highest loyalty would be to his office or to the pope, so the question of Romney’s Mormon background has erupted. However, it is not the question of his highest loyalty that even makes his Mormonism an issue. It is the fact that, prior to Utah’s admission to the Union as the 45th state in 1896, the Latter-Day Saints had an official church doctrine approving of and encouraging plural marriage—polygamy. Now someone has dug into Mitt Romney’s background to discover that his Mormon ancestors were polygamists. Is that really a surprise?

Does this mean that a President Romney would promise to make polygamy legal in this country? Is that the great fear of his Mormonism? In the 19th century, polygamy and slavery were sometimes called the great residues of barbarism that needed to be eliminated, prompting Lincoln’s predecessor, James Buchanan, to send forces into Brigham Young’s Deseret empire in the so-called “Utah War” or “Mormon War” in 1856-1857. However, considering the trend in society toward redefining marriage in nontraditional ways (that is, between any consenting adults), it is somewhat puzzling how the media is making something that was rejected by Mormons over a century ago as a disqualifier for a Romney candidacy.

President Bush has often been ridiculed by the secularists of this world, including European leaders, for praying for God’s guidance. They even have called him “scary” and suggest that he believes that “God told” him directly to invade Iraq. What happens when some of the more bizarre beliefs of Mormonism make it to the mainstream media? Will Mitt Romney be ridiculed for believing that he will be a god of his own planet and will populate it with spirit children of himself and his goddess wives?

The constitution guarantees that there will be no religious test for any elected office. It will continue to be a sign of the growing secularization of American politics if Mitt Romney’s candidacy is undermined not by his qualifications as a leader or his position on the issues, but on his religion.