6.19.2007 | "unfavorable scrutiny"

SDD — Same S***, Different Day. So it goes on the apparently endless campaign trail. This time it’s Kansas Senator Sam Brownback who’s been sent to detention by the political correctness that has infested both parties.

At issue is something labeled an “attack” on Gov. Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith. The basics, from the WaPo story:

An aide to GOP presidential candidate Sam Brownback has been reprimanded for sending e-mail to Iowa Republican leaders in an apparent attempt to draw unfavorable scrutiny to rival Mitt Romney’s Mormonism.

Emma Nemecek, the southeastern Iowa field director for Brownback’s presidential campaign and a former state representative candidate, violated campaign policy when she forwarded the June 6 e-mail from an interest group raising the questions, the Brownback campaign said Sunday.

Hmm, “unfavorable scrutiny.” Wouldn’t want any of that. While there must never be a religious test for public office, there needs to be a full, and public, exposition of what a candidate for president believes.

It is not a question of religious faith, which each of us must be free to choose. Rather, it’s the judgment of the candidate who chooses a particular religion. Before any libertarians start foaming at the mouth, let me ask this: would it be acceptable for a presidential candidate to belong to a religious sect or cult that claims women to be inferior, and who must be killed by their families if they are raped?

This would be any Wahabbi Muslim, by the way. There’s a reason why this sort of “honor killing” makes the news every now and again from Pakistan and other Islamic crudholes. Because it happens. There are other things in various religions that could give an American voter pause, and, rightly so.

So let’s not have any crocodile tears over any “unfavorable scrutiny” of Romney’s Mormonism. They believe some strange things; things that require not just faith, but which deny Christianity’s central notion of God incarnate: Jesus Christ, only begotten son of God, fully human, fully divine, who died for our sins so that we might live in Him.

So what? Nothing, if the beliefs of a candidate don’t involve things like honor killings, or keeping blacks from high church office. Oh, my bad. The Mormons stopped doing that, haven’t they? And polygamy? Depends who you ask. Well, perhaps “Big Love” is just fiction…

Let’s put that shoe in the other foot. If a Southern Baptist runs for high office, it would be legitimate to ask him, do you really believe that women “should be in submission” and “are not permitted to speak [in church]?” Well, there’s a lot of Baptists who believe that since this is Scriptural (1 Corinthians 14:34), that’s the way it has to be. I wouldn’t vote for someone who truly believed and applied this, and I’m a Baptist.

All I claim is that Christians, and Americans of other faiths, or none at all, must never shrink from placing their beliefs in the light. But this has now apparently become an unbearable burden for Mormons to have this harsh light of clarity shed on their candidate.