New School Politics

Mormons, Equality, and Biblical Curses

Ryan | 17 11 2007

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From the front page of the NYT:

Civil rights became an even more insistent issue, when boycotts and violent protests over the university’s virtually all-white sports teams broke out at away games. The Mormon Church at the time excluded blacks from full membership, considering them spiritually unfit as results of a biblical curse on the descendants of Noah’s son Ham. (During their training, a fellow missionary of Mr. Romney took notes that read: “All men were created equal — No,” followed by “Sons of Ham. ”)

This part of the bible not only kept LDS from permitting blacks in their church but it doubtlessly provided motivation for many Mormons to oppose the advancement of equality under law for blacks especially in the 1960s. The same bible story was used as a justification for slavery as late as the middle 19th century in America. Even as race relations improved it was not until 1978 that the Mormon Church opened admission for blacks.

Translate this to today as Mitt Romney runs for president. It appears that Romney is only experiencing minimal disadvantage because of his religion, which is a good sign. The reason for this is even better–the politics of Gov. Romney are not determined by the Mormonism of Mitt Romney. This brings me to a bigger point that it is not simply enough to have a seperation of church and state, but there also should be a separation of church and politics in that a politician’s religious dogma should not affect their political decision making.

Its not enough to prevent laws which discriminate based on personal belief systems from being passed. The first amendment cannot check legislation which is motivated by religion but does not explicitly mention any. Hence it is important to pay attention to the religious implication of our political candidates. So far it appears like Romney’s relatively plain politics are not altered by his relatively absurd religious beliefs, but if we do not maintain a watchful eye over all our public figures the injury we could incur from the poison of religious politics is immeasurable.