Um... Smash? You're basically describing every single politician. Do you honestly believe that when Clinton affects a ghetto accent when giving a speech before a group of African American women, that she really understands the problems of the poor black woman? Afterall, I suppose her wealthy white upbringing in the most prestigious private schools in the country properly prepared her to be able to commune with her inner-city sistahs, right?
Pot->kettle. Whatever. And for the record, I don't really like Romney as a candidate, but for reasons having nothing to do with his religion nor his positions on religion as it relates to politics.
Also, I love how you injected your own assumptions into the issue. You said that "many of whom would love to see an established state religion". Do you really believe that? While I'm sure there's the occasional "out there" religious leader who might want that somewhere deep inside his own heart, I think "many" is far too broad a term. Even "some" is too big. A "rare few" is closer to the truth Smash.
There are far more movements and actions designed to strip away the rights of religious groups and practitioners right now then there are movements to put religion in more control of the government in some manner. And that's *exactly* what Romney was talking about (cause it actually resonates with religious folks in a way that "Let's take over the country and make it subservient to religion" really doesn't.
Since apparently you're still unable or unwilling to read the context surrounding the quote provided earlier, I'll do it for you:
Romney wrote:
There are some who may feel that religion is not a matter to be seriously considered in the context of the weighty threats that face us. If so, they are at odds with the nation's founders, for they, when our nation faced its greatest peril, sought the blessings of the Creator. And further, they discovered the essential connection between the survival of a free land and the protection of religious freedom. In John Adams' words: "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. ... Our Constitution," he said, "was made for a moral and religious people."
Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.
Makes a lot more sense. Especially the bolded part. He is very clearly talking about protecting religious freedom here, not arguing that people can't be free unless they have religion. He's saying exactly what I said earlier: That a nation cannot be free if it's people can't practice their religions.
And (as I've pointed out repeatedly) that's the issue of concern among religious folks. They read newspapers Smash. They see the laws being proposed out there. The ones that would deny them the right to support a candidate (because they're religious organizations). The ones that would deny them equal opportunity to quality for federal funding (cause they're a "faith based" charity for example). They ones that allow and support any sort of speech *except* religious speech on any kind of public property. All violations of the first amendment, but somehow still continually appearing on our political landscape.
It's not that the religious people are trying to create a state religion Smash, but that the secularists are trying (and in many cases succeeding) to push religion and religious organizations out of not just the public process, but out of the social process as well. So yeah. That's going to resonate with his intended audience, but not in the way you think.
I'm pretty sure if they got a hint that a Morman was proposing some sort of state religion, it wouldn't exactly be a positive for him with them, right? I mean your entire starting assumption makes no sense in that context at all...
