The Finger of Suspicion

“I just don’t believe that people in this country are going to choose their candidate based on which church he or she goes to,” former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said in a recent Republican primary debate in Florida. The problem for Mr. Romney’s presidential hopes is that at least some voters have already voted against him using precisely that criterion, according to polling data. And a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll indicated that 44 percent of Americans believe that a Mormon president would have a difficult time uniting the country.

We have seen this before. This magazine, for much of its history, railed against similar bigotry directed against Catholic politicians. Its name, America, was chosen in part to evoke a seminal ideal at the heart of the American founding: no religious test is permitted or ought to be expected of any candidate for public office.

Forty-eight years ago, then-Senator John F. Kennedy, responding to Americans’ unease with his candidacy, said: “While this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew—or a Quaker—or a Unitarian—or a Baptist.… Today I may be the victim—but tomorrow it may be you.”

This year the finger of suspicion is pointed at a Mormon. There may be good reasons not to vote for Mr. Romney, but his faith is not one of them. The anti-Mormon whispers and, in some quarters, the outright bigotry directed against him are unfair, un-American and un-Christian.