I'm pulling out one of Charley's "Quick hits" because I find it so utterly shocking as to merit further discussion. Let's begin with Article VI of the U.S. Constitution:
but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
I like the definitive nature of that pronouncement. "No religious test." "Ever." "Any office or public trust." Seems pretty clear to me.
Not so much to Mitt Romney, evidently, who reportedly said the following to one Mansoor Ijaz at a fundraiser:
I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that "jihadism" is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, "… based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration."
Can Romney possibly have said that? Someone whose calls might actually be returned (i.e., not me) needs to ask him pronto. Because if he did, it's one of the most appalling things I've heard any candidate for national office say, in this cycle or any other. Let us count the ways.
- "based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified." This sounds an awful lot like a quota to me — and not even the rather ham-handed affirmative action-type quotas of the Bakke era. I'm talking about the old-school quotas, where universities and other institutions placed a ceiling on the number of members of particular minority groups (Jews, African-Americans, etc.) that could be offered admission. Sounds like that's what Mitt Romney has in mind for his cabinet. Every fair-minded person in this country, liberal, conservative, or in between, should be horrified by this.
- "But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration." Oh, thank you sir! Please, may I have another? Honest to crikey.
- "but no religious Test shall ever be required" Right, so getting back to that Constitution thing. Read again what Mitt Romney said: he considers how many Muslims there are in the United States, his android-like brain runs a couple of quick calculations, and he concludes that "I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified." Never mind that there might be good reasons to have a Muslim in the cabinet regardless of their representation in the American population — as Mr. Ijaz argues:
Imagine how a qualified American Muslim FBI director, sensitized to the genuine concerns among Arab and Muslim communities about civil rights violations, would be able to ensure that FBI actions and policies target the real bad guys, not communities as a whole. Imagine how an American Muslim CIA director or defense secretary whose understanding of cultural differences in places that breed Islamist violence would ensure that intelligence was not biased by bigotry or lack of understanding and that defense strategies were constructed on data acquired from authentic sources.
Now, you can agree or disagree with that argument, but it sure seems to me that using percentage of the population of a particular religious group as the principal determinant of whether a member of that group may have a cabinet position, as Romney appears to be doing, is not only stupid but borders on violating Article VI.
The Globe reports that, in an apparently unrelated interview, Romney told CNN that "[s]uggesting that we have to fill spots based on checking off boxes of various ethnic groups is really a very inappropriate way to think about we [sic] staff positions." No disagreement there. But surely, excluding a Muslim from a cabinet post simply because there aren't enough Muslims in the U.S. is just as bad, if not worse. And yet, as Mr. Ijaz points out, Romney "wants America to be blind to his religious beliefs and judge him on merit instead."
Mitt Romney — redefining hypocrisy for the 21st century.
bob-neer says
I think Romney should be very careful before he begins to recommend religious tests for office.
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p>CBS News reports there are about six million U.S. Mormons. Daniel Pipes, an often critical observer, cites estimates of between 1.8 and 12 million U.S. Muslims. The Pew Research Center estimated 2.35 million U.S. muslims in 2006.
tblade says
…there are about as many Jewish folks in the US as there are LDS folks. But since LDS tries to have itself absorbed into the dominant catch-all of “Christianity”, I don’t know what to make of that similarity.
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raj says
…unlike LDS, the Jewish faith is not an evangelical one. I would not have known that there were so many Jews in Wellesley were it not for the fact that on at least two of the Jewish holidays (Passover in the spring, and one of the fall holidays) the roads around the local synagogue are packed.
mcrd says
He should have relied, ” There will certainly be consideration given to any arab for a governmental position.”
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p>Which includes Lebanese Coptics!
marcus-graly says
The top ten Muslim countries in order of Muslim Population:
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p>Indonesia (195m)
Pakistan (161m)
India (155m)
Bangladesh (130m)
Turkey (73m)
Egypt (70m)
Iran (69m)
Nigeria (66m)
China (39m)
Algeria (32m)
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p>Of these, only Egypt and Algeria are Arab.
peter-porcupine says
From Sourcewatch –
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p>He’s also involved with a former Reagan advisor.
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p>I only wish he had put his QUESTION verbatim into the Monitor article, as the answering language seems off with regard to his synopsis of it.
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p>As far as redefining hypocricy goes – I’ll be more impressed with BMG’s newfound admiration for specific organized religions when references to Wholly Babble, et al, are no longer encouraged.
david says
Let’s just assume that Mr. Ijaz asked Romney what he said he asked him (“I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that ‘jihadism’ is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today.”), and that Romney answered as Mr. Ijaz reports in his op-ed.
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p>Given those assumptions, do you support Romney’s answer?
peter-porcupine says
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p>Romney seems to recall the question a little differently, and his recollection jibes better with the thought Mr. Ijaz uses in his Monitor piece.
david says
peter-porcupine says
Here ya go –
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p>http://www.politico.com/blogs/…
johnk says
How does that jibe the the percentage of population again?
bean-in-the-burbs says
while at the same time vigorously opposing discrimination against believers?
geo999 says
Or will only believers be expected to grin & bear it?
cosmos-cat says
While not an ethnic or religious group disabled Americans, at some 54 to 56 million, are the largest single minority group in the United States. Thus, by Gov. Romney’s dubious reasoning, disabled persons should be heavily represented in the Cabinet and elsewhere throughout government. I don’t notice this happening; nor should it happen if the only criterian is a percentage-based quota system. That wouldn’t help anyone. I say this as a disabled person, who feels very strongly that the disabled as a group are overlooked, dismissed and generally given the shaft. Even feeling as I do, I would not want to see larger populations get preference over smaller populations. That is neither fair nor right.
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p>But, even if we accept the percentage-based quota system, as others have pointed out, Mormens as a percentage of U.S. population certainly don’t merit a president.
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p>What an idiot! I cringe every time Massachusetts is bundled into a sentence with his name.
stomv says
Men are the single largest minority group. Men make up about 49% of US population… tough to have a minority any larger than that!
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p>And as a side note, people aren’t “abled” or “disabled” … there’s loads of gray in between. I’m sure there are plenty of people working for the government — even high level positions — who are disabled and for whom it isn’t obvious. Mobility issues, sensory issues, hell, maybe even mental health issues.
kbusch says
The first line of defense against Muslim extremists is and always has been Muslim moderates. However for the authoritarian Manicheans populating the conservative Republican base, Islam is a form of evil and no Muslim anywhere can be fully trusted.
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p>So expect that Romney, if he is going to keep a hold on the Manichean-authoritarian core of the GOP, will come up with some reason, no matter how convoluted, as to why the Muslims in his regime will be scarce. For political purposes, a convoluted reason is actually better than a clear one.
raj says
One, “Arab” (Arabic, if you prefer) is a language, not an ethnicity and certainly not a religion. As MCRD noted above, there are (or at least were) Coptic Christians in Lebanon; indeed, France created Lebanon for the Coptics out of its French Mandate of the Ottoman Empire following the end of WWI. There were also Coptics in Egypt. There were also Christians in Palestine, although I suspect that most of them have fled.
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p>Two, on the subject matter of the post
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p>but no religious Test shall ever be required
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p>I actually believe that you have it backwards. Go to Federalist Paper #51. What that is telling you is that persons of particular religions cannot be denied office because of their religion–or lack thereof. That doesn’t mean that people who have been voted into office and who are in a position to appoint people to federal service cannot take their prospective appointees’ religion into consideration when determining whether to appoint them. Any more than a voter is precluded from taking the nominees’ religion into account when determining whether to vote for the nominee.
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p>Why do you think that no self-professed agnostic has been elected to office?
david says
First, Fed 51 (one of my personal favorites) seems not relevant to the “religious test” question — can you point to a passage that bears on this?
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p>Second, I agree with this:
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p>”persons of particular religions cannot be denied office because of their religion–or lack thereof”
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p>But it seems to me that that’s exactly what Romney is doing (if the quotation is accurate) — he’s saying that he will not appoint a Muslim to his cabinet, however well qualified that person may be, simply because he or she is a Muslim. Article VI applies to appointive as well as elective office. And it seems to me that if [shudder] President Romney announced after his inauguration that Muslims need not apply for cabinet posts, there would be a pretty good cause of action against him for violating the “religious test” clause.
peter-porcupine says
Do you fill out a Talent Bank card, like at Town Hall to get on the Finance Committee?
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p>Is THAT why Bush overlooked my obvious Cabinet level abilities all these years? I didn’t fill out the APPLICATION CARD?
david says
raj says
One, if you don’t find #51 persuasive, try 56 and 57.
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p>Two, recognize that you are selectively quoting from Art IV, 3d paragraph. The entire paragraph reads as follows:
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p>That is the paragraph that relates to oaths and affirmations to be taken by persons who are to become federal or state officials. The “Test” that is being referred to is a “test oath.” Requiring someone to take a “test oath” regarding religion would require him or her to swear allegiance to a particular religion, and that was what was the article was forbidding–at both the federal and state level.
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p>It did not forbid the executive from considering a prospective appointee’s religion when considering whether or not to appoint him or her. It merely restricted the contents of the oath that the appointee might have to take in order to assume office.