I applaud Mitt Romney’s speech to evangelicals striving to explain his determination to be president without religious bias. But I still wouldn’t vote for Mr. Romney. Here’s why.
It’s always been pretty evident to me that religion ought not to be a test for who or why we vote for a candidate for any office — certainly not a political office as important as president. In fact, that exact sentiment is written into our Constitution here in America. (Look it up.)
I say that now, but I realize that my most regrettable presidential vote was based, yes, on religion. In my younger days, back there near the Dark Ages, I was a very conservative/fundamentalist Christian. I was actually attending a Bible college when I became old enough to vote in my first presidential election. (Had to be 21 then, not 18.) The election year was 1968 and, I’m NOT proud to say, I voted for Richard Nixon. I voted for Nixon chiefly because one Bible college prof I had in particular and my other religious leaders and friends all said Nixon was the “Christian” candidate, defined loosely in their minds as “Republican.” I still remember with some feelings of awe how my mentor the prof said in class the morning after Nixon’s election, “Thank God that now we have a Christian in the White House.”
If you know anything of U.S. history since 1968 and Richard Nixon in particular — well, the old cliche seems fitting: “And the rest is history.”
The beauty of this website is that I am perfectly free and usually willing to express my personal opinions here, no matter how biased. So here’s my warning of a strictly personal, biased opinion coming: I will not vote for Mitt Romney, but the reason is not religion. I will not vote for Mitt Romney because he is a Republican — and I have seen too many Republicans in political office at every level who cannot resist the temptation to behave like self-righteous Pharisees.
At the same time, I tend to always favor Democratic candidates because, regardless of their flaws, failures, and shortcomings — they generally act more like humble human beings not given to bouts of self-righteousness.
Ah, well, what do I know? I’m just a guy who reads the papers.
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