Campaign 2008 -- Poll says Muslims and Mormons need not apply
Posted July 22, 2006
You're an atheist and you want to run for president? No problem. In the United States you can believe in any god or no god at all and you can still run for the nation's highest office.
Article VI of the Constitution states that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States. " Pentecostals, Politheists, Presbyterians, Primitive Baptists -- none of us are barred.
That said, a candidate's religious faith can be a liability at the polls. While the country has no official "religious test" -- voters are free to reject any candidate they want for any reason they want.
So belonging to an unpopular religion can harm politicians on Election Day. For years, conventional wisdom held that Catholics could not win the presidency in this predominately Protestant nation.
In 1937, 30 percent of Americans told Gallup that they would not favor a Catholic for president. A higher number, 47 percent, said they could not support a Jewish candidate.
Today, religion is no longer much of a liability -- unless you're Jewish or Mormon (a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.) A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll, conducted in June, found that 54 percent of Americans wouldn't vote for a Muslim presidential candidate. Thirty-seven percent said they wouldn't back a Mormon. Another 21 percent said they wouldn't vote for an evangelical Christian. Fewer Americans said they wouldn't vote for a Jew (15 percent) or a Catholic (10 percent).
To see Article VI of the U.S. Constitution: http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.articlevi.html
To read a story about the Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll: www.latimes.com/features/religion/la-na-mormonpoll3jul03,1,4888025.story?coll=la-news-religion
To read a Gallup News Service poll analyses that discusses religious bias and voting: www.ms.uky.edu/~stari/STA200/pool_example2.htm
COMMENT AUTHOR: Lori Rutter
DATE: 07/26/2006 02:09:59 PM
As you know, voters lie when they come out of the booth and people surveyed also lie about their willingness to vote for anyone who is not a WASP man. I think it is some sort of requirement to believe in God and be a person of faith (preferably Christian)in order to win a presidential election in the US.