Religion On The Campaign Trail: Incident In Iowa Shows Potential For Problems
Some talking heads and political strategists prattle on about how important it is for politicians seeking public office to tout their religious backgrounds and how those backgrounds influence their actions.
Yet, the meshing of religion and politics is not only unnecessary to determining whether one is fit to hold public office, the use of faith on the campaign trail often produces an unseemly picture.
Take, for instance, a situation reported on recently by The Washington Post where one Republican presidential campaign team was caught raising questions about another candidate’s religion.
Over the weekend, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) was forced to reprimand his Iowa field director for circulating an e-mail focusing on former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s religious affiliation. Romney, who is also seeking the Republican presidential nomination, is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS).
One of Brownback’s field directors, Emma Nemecek, reportedly forwarded to Iowa Republican leaders an e-mail from a political group seemingly intended to illicit unflattering comments about Mormonism. The e-mail was framed as a “fact-checking” document. It contained a string comments about Mormonism and asked the recipients to ensure their accuracy.
Some of the statements included: “Theologically, the only thing Christianity and the LDS church has in common is the name Jesus Christ, and the LDS Jesus is not the same of the Christian faith” and “The LDS church has never been accepted by the Christian Council of Churches.”
A Post blog called “The Fix” obtained the so-called fact-checking e-mail, describing it as “a thinly veiled attempt to push negative talking points on Mormonism to influence power brokers in Iowa, where Brownback and Romney are engaged in a struggle for socially conservative voters….”
A Brownback campaign operative later issued a press release claiming that the candidate “completely disavows himself of this and any personal attacks on religion.” And yesterday, Brownback reportedly called Romney to offer an apology. Romney told the AP that the Kansas senator had asserted that “religious attacks don’t have any place in politics, and, of course, we agree on that.”
There are a myriad of issues for the presidential candidates to spar over. Their personal religious proclivities should not be among them. We aren’t a electing a rector-in-chief here. It will be a much appreciated day when the candidates, the pundits and the political strategists move off the religion topic.