Romney denounces secularism in bid for Christian fundamentalist backing

[hyphenate]

I don't know if this got posted earlier--sorry if it's been posted already


US presidential campaign: Romney denounces secularism in bid for Christian fundamentalist backing
By Patrick Martin
7 December 2007

In a speech Thursday, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, a leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, offered himself as an ally of the Christian fundamentalist right in the struggle against secularism, declaring, “Freedom requires religion,” an assertion that denies the right of those who are non-religious or atheists to be free from religious observance and indoctrination.

Romney’s speech is a measure of how far to the right the US political system has shifted, and the degree to which both officially recognized political parties have subordinated themselves to the most backward and reactionary forms of religious dogmatism.

The degree to which the prejudices of the religious right are driving the Republican campaign was widely noted in the US press coverage of the speech. Time magazine commented, “Speaking at the George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas, Romney countered questions about his Mormon faith by throwing down an implicit question of his own to religious conservatives: Who are you more afraid of—Mormons or secularists?”

While Romney was at pains to compare his remarks to the celebrated speech by John F. Kennedy in 1960, in which Kennedy addressed his relationship to the Roman Catholic Church, the content was the opposite.


http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/dec2007/romn-d07.shtml

[saltpoint]

1. If you say you love Jesus and donate $25, Willard will come over

to your house and do the dishes.

[tekisui]

2. Secularist? Would that be those like the Founding Fathers?

I'm more afraid of the mormons.