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December 6th, 2007

Romney Seeks to Allay Concerns About His Faith

by Barbara Bradley Hagerty | NPR.org, December 6, 2007
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney sought to allay voters’ concerns about his Mormon faith Thursday, saying that, if elected, “I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause and no one interest.”

In a speech delivered at the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, Texas, Romney hoped to reassure the American public — and, in particular, the white evangelicals who have great influence in the Republican Party — about his membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a religion that many Americans view as a cult.

As his wife and four of his five sons looked on from the audience, Romney addressed a fear that many evangelical Christians have voiced: He said his faith would shape his moral values, but he promised that his church would not dictate his policies.

“Let me assure you,” Romney said, “that no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions. Their authority is theirs, within the province of church affairs, and it ends where the affairs of the nation begin.”

In this, Romney’s address closely echoed the sentiment and the language of then-Sen. John F. Kennedy’s historic address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in 1960.

In that speech to skeptical evangelicals, Kennedy said, “I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters — and the church does not speak for me.”

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