Democracy for Vancouver

But I’ll start with them.

I know that I will likely live my whole life without seeing a U.S. president who openly shares my atheism. That’s a given. And I don’t necessarily see religious belief as an impediment to holding high public office; but, I do believe that particular sects may warp an individual’s perception of reality more than others.

But it’s not the Mormon undergarments that concern me, or the belief that a proven con-man was the founding prophet of the religion; it’s not even that Joseph Smith constructed a prophecy (no. 132) to excuse his serial philandering, while specifically denying, on pain of death, his wife Emma’s right to exercise that same freedom, and contending that the practice of polygamy within the Mormon faith would turn men into gods.

After all, many religions prohibit men from touching their wives during menstruation; Catholics glory in eating the body and blood of their savior; and, many evangelicals believe that the moon glows from within and that the sun stood still in the sky for a full day to help God’s chosen see well enough to slay their enemies. Weirdness and religion go together like Sonny & Cher.

And, as the Constitution says, there shall be no religious tests for public office. So, come one, come all, and let the electorate be the judge.

But, were there ever Mormon candidate on the Dem side (an unlikely prospect, I know), the insularity of Mormons would concern me.

While Mormon missions have spread the faith to ten million worldwide, with many of these new believers in Africa and South America, Mormons in this country remain a people apart - and happily so. Mormons pride themselves on being different, for this makes them the Chosen People of their New Jerusalem. And being a people apart, they rarely come into contact with the real world of poverty, race, gender and sexuality issues, or even the basics of the facts of life.

I once worked with a Mormon - an adult - who asked me about how people having sex-change operations found organ donors. He actually thought there was penis- and uterus-swapping going on. A sixteen year-old Mormon didn’t know, until I explained our new cat’s shaved belly, what it meant to spay or neuter a pet. Mormon congregations have their own Scout troops and sports teams; they keep school-aged kids in before- and after-school “seminary” to teach them the religion, but also to minimize their exposure to the beliefs of others and the secular world.

My 16 y.o. friend T. is a great guy, smart as a whip, warm, generous, compassionate, funny, and he puts up with my questioning of his faith - but I would not want him to grow up to be President, not if he remains a Mormon (and not just because I’d hate to see him suffer). He believes that dinosaurs and humans may well have coexisted, and that the earth may be only 6,000 years old. T. has professed a desire to go to BYU - and I’ve promised to do anything and everything I can to convince him not to. Because at BYU nothing he believes will ever be challenged, and he will never learn to live and work with people of different backgrounds, or to understand the strength and beauty of diversity (not to mention that he will never learn the true age of the earth or the date of the dinosaur extinction).

Mitt Romney may be Mormon in name only - he certainly seems to have no problem with lying. And if John McCain is any measure, most politicians have a fleeting relationship with faith that ebbs and flows with the election cycle. But no person who truly, deeply believes their god or prophet or holy book or holy father is inerrant belongs in the Oval Office.

Because when religion comes first, the Constitution comes second.