The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless.

The Stone is featuring occasional posts by Gary Gutting, a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, that apply critical thinking to information and events that have appeared in the news.

Does Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith count against his being a good choice for president? Christopher Hitchens, a leading atheist, says yes: since Mormonism is “a weird and sinister belief system,” Romney’s long and close connection with it requires that he “defend and explain . . . his voluntary membership in one of the most egregious groups operating on American soil.” From a very different perspective, Robert Jeffress, a conservative evangelical, makes a similar point: “Born-again followers of Christ should always prefer a competent Christian…to a competent non-Christian like Mitt Romney.” Even so subtle an analyst as Harold Bloom seems to have worries about Romney’s Mormonism.



I myself am leery of rejecting candidates simply because I disapprove of their religious views. There are many people with what I see as absurd religious beliefs who are highly competent and reliable in other areas. Accordingly, I’m inclined toward Amy Sullivan’s idea that voters should take no account at all of candidates’ religious beliefs. But thinking the idea through suggests that things aren’t quite that simple.

According to Sullivan, all we should care about is how candidates would act as president, not what religious beliefs might or might not influence those actions. As she succinctly puts it, “It’s their decisions, not their deity, that really matter.” She takes the example of Rick Santorum, a conservative Catholic, who believes that homosexual behavior is sinful. According to Sullivan, this is of no political significance. “The only thing we should care about is whether a candidate like Santorum would seek to ban gay marriage as president,” she said. “So just ask him that. In the end, his motivation for taking the position is irrelevant.”

But suppose Santorum replies — as he has — that he would seek to ban gay marriage (in fact, he also supports anti-sodomy laws). The question then is why he thinks this is the right thing to do. If his only reply is that his Catholic religion condemns homosexuality, then we’ve hit a blank wall. Debate is the life-blood of a democracy, and this means that leaders must offer discussable reasons for what they propose to do. To say, “My religion says so” may explain why you believe something, but it has no function in a discussion with people who do not accept your religion. Such an appeal to religion is, as Richard Rorty once put it, merely a “conversation stopper.”

My point against Sullivan, then, is that it’s important to know whether a candidate can offer discussable arguments for a position or merely holds it as a matter of religious faith. Private citizens may be entitled to base their votes on religious faith or anything thing else, but those who aspire to lead a democracy have a responsibility to engage in meaningful debate with those who disagree with them.

Of course, every argument has to start from some basic premises that are not argued for, and it may be that a political leader’s religious faith suggests such premises. Leaders of the civil rights movement made a case against segregation based on their view that all human beings, as created by God, have equal rights. But what mattered for their political argument was that the principle of equal human rights has wide appeal among citizens of a democracy, regardless of their religious views. That’s why it was effective in a political argument against segregation. By contrast, a case for segregation based solely on Biblical passages that seem to forbid the mixing of races would have no purchase outside a narrow circle of believers.

Besides the question of reasons for policies, there is the question of specific presidential decisions, especially ones made under high pressure and tight time constraints. Since religious worldviews typically subordinate earthly concerns to otherworldly values, it’s important to know how a president would balance such values against the best interests of the nation at a crucial point. John Kennedy responded to this concern in his famous speech during the 1960 campaign. “Whatever issue may come before me as president,” he said, “I will make my decision in accordance . . . with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates.” (Mitt Romney gave a similar assurance in 2007. If Harold Bloom is right about the theocratic tendencies of Mormonism, such assurance is particularly needed.)

Related More From The Stone Read previous contributions to this series.

It might be suggested that, from a religious viewpoint, acting in accord with the will of God must always be in the national interest. But in reality the choice is between what, apart from religious considerations, seems to be in the nation’s interest and what a president’s faith judges to be the will of God. As a representative of all the people, a president is obliged to suspend private religious judgment in favor of the temporal welfare of the nation. We need assurances that candidates will do that.

Mere assurances, of course, are no guarantee. A pope’s condemnation might lead a Catholic president to back off from a war that he or she independently deemed both just and in the nation’s interest. But the fact of a formal public declaration might put considerable pressure on a president tempted to place faith before country. Beyond that, we also need to take account of a candidate’s history of political behavior.

A candidate’s religious faith may ground a sustaining core of values, but it may also conflict with meaningful discussion of policy or conflict with the nation’s best interest. Only after we have determined that both these conflicts are unlikely should we follow Sullivan’s “decisions, not deity” rule.