Same Old Same Old

One of the very first people I visited in my very first job in 1968 was an elderly woman who said she could not ever vote for Richard Nixon. She remembered his hateful actions as a congressman. She jokingly said that was the trouble with old age, you remember too much.

I thought of that when I started hearing all the concern about the Mormon religion of two of the candidates for the Republican nomination for President. I don't claim to remember too much, but I do remember all of the worry, fears, and bigotry that was expressed over John Kennedy's Roman Catholic faith. A minister named Herb Meza in Houston, Texas was Chair of the Houston Ministerial Association and had Senator Kennedy address that issue and the issue seemed to diminish.

John Kennedy became President and his Roman Catholic religion did not seem to bother him as President. At least not according to the rumors of all his romantic affairs. In fact, as I think back, there are very few Presidents who seem to give any evidence that their religious faith has made much difference in what they did. Jimmy Carter is about the only President I remember who seemed to take very seriously his religious convictions and if truth be told, he had a very difficult time being President.

It does not take a long memory to remember that religion was a major aspect of the Obama struggle to be President. He keeps claiming to be Christian and his enemies keep claiming he is a Muslim. There was a lot of discussion about the "brand" of Christianity he followed if he was a Jeremiah Wright follower. But the nation elected Obama and one can hardly say that his religious convictions have "ruined" the country.

Now there is just as much ignorance and fear over two Mormons who are running for President. The great "we can't have a President who is a Mormon. They believe all kinds of strange things and are not Christian. They are a cult." cry has gone up. The reality is that those men have been elected to various leadership roles and those states, companies, and offices have not been destroyed by having Mormon leaders.

Why do we keep having the same debate over and over? A long time ago an organizer told a group of us the only legitimate standard to judge a politician was by whether or not he has kept his promises to the public. Look to the record. What did he say. What did he do. The Politician who promises one thing and does not attempt to do what he says should not be trusted. The Politician who promises the public something and tries to do them deserves to be trusted. To their credit many of the Republicans elected in 2010 have been trying to keep the promises they made when they ran. Thus it is easier to decide if they should be reelected because we know they will try to do what they said. The only other question is whether we like what they promise.

I would much rather have a devout, faithful Hindu who speaks quietly, makes one or two promises and tries to keep them, than to have a Bible Thumping Christian who says he wants to impose his religious convictions on the whole society and yet does nothing. But we do not need to have a religious orthodoxy standard for our Presidential candidates. We have been through that too many times before.