Religious tests are all the rage, just ask Mitt Romney.
He [Mitt Romney] showed poise when a heckler attacked him for being a Mormon: ``You sir, you are a pretender. You do not know the Lord.''
The audience booed the heckler.
''One of the great things about this land is that we have people of different faiths and different religions, but we need to have a person of faith lead the country,'' he said, as the audience gave him a standing ovation.
Source: Romney tries to win over Florida, by Beth Reinhard, Miami Herald
It's safe to say it was most likely a "person of faith" that heckled Romney; we godless folks don't presume to fathom the Lord. In fact, that's one of the things that many of us have a problem with--the lordliness of religion.
In any case, the exchange portends a ruinous mash-up on our political landscape.
Unfortunately, some people of faith aren't satisfied to deliver their souls to the Lord. They think the Lord should preside over politics in America, and government too.
Mitt Romney, partisan lackey though he's been, is about to get a harsh lesson in religious tests. My aunt is going with him for the ride.
I have a Mormon aunt that was desperate to see Bush win in 2004. We didn't know she meant it quite so literally until she accidentally told my mother, "I would stuff ballot boxes to make sure he wins."
I love my aunt but that kind of thinking is a lethal danger to representative democracy.
My aunt comes by her zealous streak honestly enough, I suppose; she lost her first son when he was ten. My oldest cousin was struck by a driver and died later of complications from his injuries. The family watched, helpless to relieve her sorrow, as my aunt's heart shattered like spun glass for years and years afterwards. Not even her youngest son, and my closest cousin, could break the grip that despondency had on her. The only thing that helped her put her innermost self back together again was becoming a Mormon. From my vantage point, it gave her life stability and purpose again.
I'm a hell-bound heathen in my aunt's eyes, so we don't talk about religion. Still, as her niece, I'm grateful that she found some refuge from the despair that engulfed her for so long. I do not, however, want to travel the same spiritual road with her, particularly at the behest of our shared government.
My aunt knows a great deal about sorrow. But she doesn't understand how religion can be like oxygen for her soul and sulfuric acid to mine. This is a thing like gravity: people don't have to understand it; it just is.
I can’t imagine arguing about the function of gravity for hundreds of years. But I join billions of people that have patiently suffered through arguments about the proper place of religion in civic affairs, for thousands of years.
Just recently, Arkansas lawmakers voted on a bill that would commemorate January 29 as “Thomas Paine Day.” The bill failed by a narrow margin.
Rep. Sid Rosenbaum, R-Little Rock, quizzed Smith about Paine and quoted passages from Paine's book, "The Age of Reason," which Rosenbaum criticized as anti-religion.
"He did some good things for the nation, but the book that he wrote was anti-Christian and anti-Jewish," Rosenbaum said. "I don't think we should be passing things out like this without at least debating it and letting people in the House know what we're voting on."
Source: Thomas Paine Day Vote Fails in Arkansas, by Andrew DeMillo, Associated Press, Feb 11
Thomas Paine did some good things for the nation; there’s an understatement. Thomas Paine helped inspire the American Revolution but that's not enough for Americans to be grateful for. Paine still has to pass a religious test to be honored by those of us that owe our freedom, in part, to his ideology.
So Paine was “anti-Christian and anti-Jewish;” technically speaking, that’s a valid statement and yet it misses the truth altogether.
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.
Source: The Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine
I don't pretend to understand the Lord, or his fondest admirers for that matter. But I do understand how Thomas Paine's brand of Reason contributed to the framework of the Constitution of the United States of America. I comprehend how it protects both my aunt and myself, even if she doesn't. Turning away from the profound dignity of this knowledge is not an act of faith; it's an act of wanton temerity with predictable consequences.
Mark my words:
America will stand on its foundations or it will stumble into its grave.