Romney Speech Excerpts

UPDATED

The Romney campaign has released excerpts of his highly-anticipated speech.

I am not surprised to see that they do not include a renunciation his faith. Nor, do these excerpts include an explanation of his faith.

They do, however contain a few assertions that I find wrong and, in some cases, ridiculous [Emphases added].

"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."

"Freedom requires religion"? What does that even mean?

"When I place my hand on the Bible and take the oath of office, that oath becomes my highest promise to God. If I am fortunate to become your president, I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest. A president must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States."

Not awful. Not entirely correct, but not awful. The president's oath is specifically to defend the Constitution of the United States. If "common cause" is being used here as a euphemism for "constitution," then I guess it works. If it isn't then, again, I don't know what it means.

"There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church's distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution. No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes president he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths."

The people Romney is speaking to here, Christian conservative primary voters, are precisely the ones who "would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church's distinctive doctrines." I doubt that they will find his distaste for it very persuasive.

And, it is good to see that someone has explained to Romney that the founders prohibited a religious test for office in the Constitution. Too bad he didn't know that before he vowed to apply just such a test barring Muslims from his cabinet should he become president. Does this mean he would now welcome Muslims into his cabinet? Again, the subset of the electorate he is appealing to here are not likely to be comforted by this statement if that is the case.

"We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion. But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America — the religion of secularism. They are wrong.

Ah, now the straw men come out of their holes.

"Some" are intent on establishing a new "religion of secularism"? Really? Who?

"We should acknowledge the Creator as did the founders — in ceremony and word. He should remain on our currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history, and during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places. Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our Constitution rests. 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.'"

Is Romney aware that the Pledge of Allegiance, written in 1892, did not officially include the phrase "one nation under God" until 1954?

Nice sop to Bill O'Reilly with the "nativity scenes and menorahs" line, though. There is a War on Christmas raging, after all.

"The diversity of our cultural expression, and the vibrancy of our religious dialogue, has kept America in the forefront of civilized nations even as others regard religious freedom as something to be destroyed.

Will somebody please get these straw men out of here? They're stinking up the place!

Again, the only people trying to destroy religious freedom in this country are the right-wing theocrats to whom Romney is delivering this speech.

UPDATE

The speech is over, and I believe it will insipire more, rather than fewer questions about the tenets of Romney's Mormon faith.

If his audience was people who are not uncomfortable with Mormonism, then he was preaching to the converted. Moderately-religious or secular-minded people are not likely to give Romney's faith much weight when deciding for whom to vote. Ironically, the secular-minded are among the few with whom Romney seems to have a problem; and he truly doesn't seem to care much for Muslims. His praise for their "commitment to frequent prayer" was faint indeed.

The people who are likely to reject Romney for religious reasons, however, were not persuaded to do otherwise by that speech. In fact, those people are probably not open to persuasion in the first place. I fail to see what he accomplished today.