Herman Cain on the latest media-generated controversy over Mitt Romney’s religious views (via NRO):
Herman Cain refused to wade into the controversy over whether it is accurate to call Mitt Romney a Christian or not.
“I’m not running for theologian in chief,” he said on CNN’s State of the Union this morning. “I’m a lifelong Christian and what that means is one of my guiding principles for the decisions I make is I start with do the right thing. I’m not getting into that controversy. He’s a Mormon. That much I know. I’m not going to do an analysis of Mormonism vs. Christianity for the sake of answering that.”
Funny, the media seem to be much more concerned with this type of question than they were in the last presidential election cycle when Racist Reverend Wright’s parishioner was running.
Cain answered the question the way it should be answered, which is not to answer it. Theological differences are as old as religion. But they have no place in a political campaign. Values are a separate issue. It matters greatly if a candidate for office accepts or rejects America’s traditional Judeo-Christian values. But people with very different theological views can and do advocate the right values. All the candidates should follow Cain’s lead and refuse to play the media’s game.
On a related note, it was unfortunate to hear some conservatives, most notably William Bennett, attribute what is a legitimate theological debate to bigotry. Perhaps he meant only that it was bigotry in the context of whether to support a political candidate. In any case, theological differences are not bigotry. Bennett should know better than to use that kind of left-wing “argumentation” style.
The Unalienable Right 