Romney and the Separation of Church and State

Mitt Romney addressed the issue of separation of church and state during his presidential campaign in December of 2007. Romney’s position on the issue can be summed up by the following excerpt from his speech (http://www.thebostonchannel.com/r/14789305/detail.html), “I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us from ‘the God who gave us liberty.’” Romney’s speech was delivered in order to serve 2 purposes. Firstly, Romney needed to assure the public that as president of the US, he would not favor any specific religious denomination over another. Second, Romney needed to assure religious conservatives that despite his insistence on separating church from state, he would not implicitly combine the state with secular atheism. It is in this sense that we can consider Romney’s position somewhat of a mix between accomodationist and separatist.

As a devout Mormon, it was apparent that Religion played a significant role in Romney’s personal life. During the 2008 presidential campaign, it became clear that Romney’s religious affiliation with the relatively small church of the LDS would need to be addressed in order to quell the concerns of the electorate. One of these concerns is elaborated on by Fowler’s analysis, “the LDS church is political in several senses… Mormon leaders encourage involvement in politics and foster a setting where conservative values and politics are a way of life.”

Similar to John F Kennedy’s presidential campaign in 1960, Romney’s presidential campaign was subject to questions about how personal religious affiliation should influence the actions of the president of the United States. And just as Kennedy “adopted a neutral stance toward religion in his role as chief executive” (Religion and the Presidency of John F. Kennedy, Carty), so too did Romney state that “no religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion.” Thus, Romney hoped to dispel rumors that his Mormon religious identity would dominate political decisions.

Despite their advocacy for the separation of church and state, both Romney and Kennedy were staunch supporters of the principles of civil religion. During Kennedy’s stint as president during the cold war, advocacy for civil religion and the encouragement of the expression of religious beliefs was seen as a tool to further distinguish the freedom and plurality of religious practice in the US from the blanket uniformity of atheism in the USSR. By contrast, Romney’s more modern support for the incorporation of civil religion is used as a tool to support the “great moral principles that urge us all on a common course.”