You probably didn't want to go there, Mitt. (Joshua Lott/Reuters)

You probably didn't want to go there, Mitt. (Joshua Lott/Reuters)

“You expect the president of the United States to be sensitive to that freedom and protect it and, unfortunately, perhaps because of the people the president hangs around with, and their agenda, their secular agenda, they have fought against religion,” Romney said, responding to a question about religious freedoms, in particular the Obama administration’s recent controversial attempt to require all institutions, including hospitals and colleges with religious affiliations, to offer free birth control and other contraceptives.

In an attempt to outdo Rick Santorum in appealing to the American Taliban, Mitt Romney appears to be promising a theocratic agenda in his would-be presidency.Which leads to the obvious question: Doesn't the Constitution pretty much demand that the only agenda a president have be a secular one? What agenda would Romney have as president? A theocratic one?

He's opened the door to that question, essentially giving the anti-JFK speech on religion. Here's what Kennedy had to say specifically on the matter of faith and governance:



{...] [L]et me stress again that these are my views. For contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me. [. . .] Whatever issue may come before me as president on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject—I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.

Would Romney, like Kennedy, disavow the outside religious pressure or dictates he might receive from his own bishops? Since he's now expressed a disdain for a "secular" presidential agenda, it's a question that has to be asked.