President Wanted: Christians Only

Never mind what the Constitution says about not having any sort of religious litmus test for the American presidency. No such law needs to exist because the voters will insure that atheists are excluded. In fact, this is one place where there is little evidence of our American culture war at all because the American people are largely united in their opinion that no atheist should be president.

Mitt Romney certainly agrees. Belief in the poorly defined Christian god is a necessary prerequisite for holding the highest political office. Atheists simply do not have what it takes.

I find it particularly interesting that flag-waving, gay-hating, conservatives say they would elect a homosexual president before a nonbeliever. I wonder how they feel about atheist marriage? Perhaps the marriage of two atheists also represents a violation of the "sanctity of marriage."

This is bigotry - plain and simple. We can try to water it down by emphasizing that American believers simply want someone in office who shares their values, but this does not disguise the bigotry. In fact, we could make this same sharing values excuse to exclude women, African Americans, homosexual, or any other group from office.

We want our presidents to share our delusion, and this seems to override most other considerations. According to Reuters,

Apparently we’d even rather have an egocentric nincoompoop who actually believes he’s on orders from God than a completely rational atheist as the POTUS. After all, at least the former believes in God, which I guess means that he can’t be all that bad.

I don't know about you, but I want a president who is a hell of a lot smarter than I am. I will take this over "folksiness" any day. And I want someone who can act decisively but who bases his/her actions on sound, rational thought. Faith is a liability because it entails unwavering belief in the absence of evidence. This is not a trait to encourage in someone with this much power.

Tags: politics, Christianity, Mitt Romney, church and state, faith, atheist, atheism, bigotry, intolerance, discrimination, religion