Beliefs: Faith and Family Values at Issue in Republican Contest

By MARK OPPENHEIMER
New York Times

For the first time in American history, a major political party may be choosing between two leading presidential candidates neither of whom is Protestant. If current polling holds through the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses and beyond, the Republican nomination will come down to a choice between a Latter-day Saint, or Mormon, and a Roman Catholic.

It is therefore time to celebrate the broad-mindedness of American voters, but also to mourn the bigotries that may still linger. On the one hand, the Mitt Romney/ Newt Gingrich showdown — which, given the fickleness of primary voters, could soon seem as passé as Rick Perry/Herman Cain — testifies to Americans’ pluralist ideals. American voters, even religious Protestants, do not require that their president be Protestant, or born-again, or even a regular churchgoer. So long as a candidate makes bland, predictable affirmations of religious faith, he or she has adequately punched the religion card.
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