Treading carefully on faith
The Mormon faith is regarded with widespread suspicion in the United States. Some American voters describe the faith as a ‘‘cult’’ and others insist that Mormons are not ‘‘proper Christians’’.
With Mitt Romney now ensconced as the presumed Republican candidate, 18 per cent of Americans say that they would not vote for a Mormon as president because of his religion, according to a Gallup poll published yesterday. That is little changed from the 17 per cent who responded similarly in 1967 when Romney’s father, George, ran for the White House.
The Gallup survey brings into the open a delicate subject that the mainstream media in the US has largely tiptoed around, but the polling figures mask a more nuanced picture.
The Mormon Church claims to have six million members in the US and it is gradually becoming more integrated into the mainstream.
Mormons make up about 2 per cent of the US population but a slightly larger portion of Congress, with 15 members – nearly 3 per cent of the total. This gradual mainstreaming of the faith has been going on for years.
Bill Bain, Romney’s former boss, once told an associate that he made a point of hiring Mormons when he co-founded Bain & Company in 1973 because he saw them as cleanliving, hard workers, an image that has popular currency.
It is all too easy in a largely secular country such as Britain to poke fun at Mormon tenets and practices, such as their undergarments and their belief that God lives on a planet called Kolob.
To understand why this is less of an issue in the US requires an appreciation of how deeply rooted religious pluralism is in America.
In this profoundly religious land, it is generally accepted that ridiculing the practices of one faith marks the start of a dangerous path.
As with race, the Democrats and President Barack Obama are treading carefully on faith.
They do not want to reignite the simmering debate about whether the President is a covert Muslim or start another discussion about the ‘‘unAmerican’’ views of his former Chicago pastor Jeremiah Wright.
According to the Gallup survey, only 57 per cent of Americans know that Romney is a Mormon. This holds out the possibility that his religion could become more of a factor as it becomes more widely known.
However, history shows public suspicion of a religious group is not always an impediment to victory. In May 1960 a Gallup poll found that 21 per cent of Americans would not vote for a Catholic. John F Kennedy, a Catholic, went on to win.