Article VI Blog

ANDREW SULLIVAN thinks it is significant that Romney's national Faith and Values Steering Committee includes only a single Jew, but does include "many Christianists and others deeply hostile to [guess what?] gay dignity and equality."  To say Sullivan's concern is not surprising would be . . . an understatement.  Actually, to call his concern an understatement is itself an understatement.  Self-parody, thy name is Andrew Sullivan!

IN CONTRAST TO SULLIVAN'S HYSTERIA, Michael Gaynor, to whom we linked a couple of days back, again displays his clear-eyed take on The Question and the left: 

The secular extremists recognize Mr. Romney as a formidable foe, so they focus on the differences among the religious in accordance with classic divide-and-conquer theory.

Dead-nuts on, in my view.

AND HERE'S LOU SHELDON, recently named to Romney's Faith and Values Steering Committee:

There's no need to reconcile the Mormon issue. He's running for a secular office. My thinking is that Mitt Romney is a person with the experience and with the Judeo Christian moral values. A non-evangelical who is socially conservative can be president. He may not have the born again experience, but I've been around Mormons long enough to know that when they pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ they are sincere about that– that he is the Lord and the redeemer and the one that they have to be answerable too.

That Sheldon said this to CBN is significant, I think.  Maybe The Question will fade after all. 

John comments and adds:  The question has faded with most people, but it remains, and will remain with the media.  It is astonishing to me that the people who should be the most knowledgeable and most well-read are the ones that hang on to this story, despite its actual non-story status.  Of course there are people out there that will not vote for Romney because . . . but there are still Klan members out there and there are still people who believe Elvis is alive too.  One cannot help but note that the line between reporting on a political force and trying to create one is a very thin line indeed.

IT IS NOT REALLY within this blog's scope, save for the fact that this event will HAVE to be a religious experience for Dean Barnett.

Update from Lowell:  Romney has an op-ed in today's National Review Online.  It's about the politics, values and science bound up in stem cell research.  Although the piece is largely political in nature, we call your attention to it because the stem cell issue is so closely tied to faith concerns.  I'm pretty sure that Romney wrote the op-ed himself (he still writes all his own speeches), so it's a good window into his thinking on matters involving both politics and values– or, as some like to say, his "worldview."

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