Religion & American Law

This article on Huffington Posttalks about one of the biggest reasons why Newt Gingrich won South Carolina over Mitt Romney.  Gingrich benefited off of Romney’s mormon faith which led him to win south Carolina with flying colors. Exit Polls show that 43% of the people who said “Religious faith mattered” voted for Gingrich while 42% of people who said “Religion faith doesn’t matter” voted for Romney.  Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who came in second in 2008 South Carolina primary race advised that Romney should address his faith to the voters. That he needs to make his faith less important somehow and focus on turning the country around.

The biggest issue here is that people in US often care about religious identity of the President of United States. There is a clear distinction between the voters that voted for Gingrich and Romney. There could be one of two reasons associated with this. One, that due to the majority of population being Christian, voters want a Christian to lead the country (one of their type) and two, that American voters discriminate against any non-Christian presidential candidate because he is not one of their type.

Why do voters care about religious faith anyway? A presidential candidate is chosen to be the president for his experience, talents, and strategies, there is no room for religious identity. I feel that Mitt Romney is being a victim; he is being discriminated against because he is not a christian. Voters need not look for a true “Christian” in a presidential candidate, just because majority of the population of the United States is Christian. We shouldn’t care what church he goes to, or if he doesn’t. What matters is, if they can turn around the economy and get back American jobs. We might as well pass a law stating that if the presidential candidate isn’t Christian, he/she shall not be allowed to run for presidency. If the church and state can be separated, so can Romney’s personal beliefs and professional beliefs. All one needs is the country’s best interest at heart to be the president of United States. I feel that Romney needs to tell the voters straight up that he is a mormon, has different religious beliefs but also has great strategies to fix the economy because of his business background. Many of the other GOP candidates are attacking Romney for his mormon faith, which is putting audience or voters in doubt and overlooking his experience. We can never end religious discrimination but what we can do is like stated above, create a bill or law that states only Christians can run for president because its rather hard to change different beliefs and opinions of millions of Americans and easier to weed out the non-Christian Presidential candidates because there aren’t many of them. I feel that is the true solution for this problem in the long run. Its time we stepped up and either opt for religious discrimination or eliminate it.