Northwest Reflections

I have a confession to make. I have changed my mind 180 degrees on this subject the last few months.

Prior to my interest in Romney’s candidacy, I had considered America a “Christian” nation, called by God to play an important role in the world. And since the majority of Americans are (more or less) Christian, I simply accepted the claims of the Religious Right that America is a “Christian nation.” But to be honest, I didn’t think about the subject very deeply. I certainly didn’t know what they meant by the phrase.

The events attending Romney’s campaign revealed that many in the Religious Right are openly prejudiced against Americans who do not fit their definition of “Christian.” This disturbed me and motivated me to rethink the subject.

I have recommitted myself to the principle of separation of church and state. I still believe that God inspired our (imperfect) founding fathers to write the Constitution. The Constitution was not and never will equate to holy writ. But if there is any divine spark in that document, it lies in its guarantees for relgious freedom. I am deeply appreciative of the Constitution’s rigidly neutral stipulations regarding religion. Maintaining strict separation between civil law and religion is the only way to allow Americans to worship as they please.

Government must consider as irrelevant all religious issues that do not pertain to the here and now. Excluding others from full civil participation based on tests of religious correctness is unconstitutional, wrong, and un-American.

Is America a “Christian Nation”? No! — not in the sense that the “Christian” faith (whatever that is) should enjoy special privileges in Government. All faiths in America (including atheism) must be treated equally before the law.

Should the Republican Party strive to be America’s “Christian Party”? Again, the answer is No!

A few months ago a friend of mine who is very active in the Republican Party begged me to become a precinct officer, but I told him I was too busy. I’m an early-morning seminary teacher, after all. To Mormons this means that in addition to my full-time job, I teach a religion class to teenagers at 6AM every school day.

I had followed Romney’s campaign with great interest and was sorry to see McCain all but corner the nomination, leading to Romney’s dropping out. I was (and still am) steaming at the anti-Mormon sentiment openly expressed during the campaign, particularly by Huckabee and his supporters. In the past months I have asked myself many times whether I should even be a Republican anymore.

So it was with great reluctance I considered attending the Washington State Republican caucus last Saturday. In fact, I would had stayed away had not my wife encouraged me to go. When Romney quit just a few days before, I became even more unsure about attending. But I went anyway. The caucus was held at a school. I recognized several members of my church there, but none of them were in my precinct. About a dozen precincts were meeting at this location.
The other two folks were a friendly, elderly married couple. It was the first caucus experience for me, and I think for them too. We wrote down our Presidential preferences on a form — the couple wrote down McCain and I put down Romney. Then the elderly couple insisted that I be the delegate for our precinct to the GOP District Convention since they are too old, so I consented. Just as we were going, a party official came over and said we had to have a precinct chairman too, and so the couple elected me as the chairman.

The party official turned out to be none other than my seminary team-teacher! I had no idea he was interested, much-less involved in politics. We had never discussed politics because we didn’t have any time to!

So there you have it. Saturday morning I was entertaining doubts about my affiliation with the Republican Party. By Saturday afternoon I was an official delegate and a party precinct chairman. (This is not the national GOP convention or even the state GOP convention. This is a “convention” held in our town to determine what delegates will be sent to the next higher level that ultimately leads to the National Convention. But still…)

On Monday I found out the caucus results and learned that McCain edged out Huckabee by a razor-thin margin. I also learned from the radio that the caucus vote is determined strictly by the preferences of the delegates. So my precinct went for Romney on the basis of my sole vote, even though the Elderly couple outnumbered me in voting for McCain. What a surprise! I don’t think any of the three of us understood the rules at the time. Interestingly, even though Romney has suspended his campaign, he still got 17% of the caucus votes in Washington. McCain won with 25%. Huckabee came in second with 24%.

It will be interesting to see what happens at the District Convention next month.

I suspect the Republicans are going to take a pounding (perhaps deservedly) in the general election in November. But if good people get involved while the Party is “down and out” they can make a significant difference down the road.