The dancing monkey

The New York Times editorializes on the Mitt Romney come-to-Jesus speech, saying essentially what I said here, that his real purpose wasn't to reach out to people of all faiths, but to genuflect to the Christian evangelicals who consider Mormonism heretical.

He has found himself supplicating to those who he would lead and, in the process, assenting to the belief that candidates for president (and every other office) must pass a strict religious test to prove they are qualified.

Certainly Romney is not the first to fall victim to this fundamentalist philosophy. It has hijacked reason on both sides of the ballot.

But then what does reason have to do with it? As the NYT points out - as everyone points out when the founding fathers are cited as purveyors of Christian identity: The authors of the Constitution knew that requiring specific declarations of religious belief (like Mr. Romney saying he believes Jesus was the son of God) is a step toward imposing that belief on all Americans. That is why they wrote in Article VI that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”