There has only been one non-Protestant president in all of history: John F. Kennedy, who was a Catholic. His religion played a huge role in his campaign and subsequent term in office. While Romney and Kennedy were both religious outsiders in their campaigns, they faced vastly different circumstances that affected the way they were received. Ultimately, Romney's Mormonism was far less of an issue than Kennedy's Catholicism in the minds of Americans.
Throughout American history, both anti-Catholic and anti-Mormon sentiment have been widespread. However, the origins of these two religions make the extent of religious persecution different. Mormonism was founded in America in the 1820s in upstate New York by Joseph Smith and continues to have the largest population in America, concentrated in Utah. By contrast, Catholicism has its roots in Europe, and, in America, most practicing Catholics were immigrants or more recent descendants of immigrants. Therefore, Catholicism is and was tied to anti-immigrant sentiment.
Additionally, the sheer number of Mormons and Catholics practicing in America during Kennedy's and Romney's elections led to different responses to the candidates. In 1960, Catholics made up nearly 25% of the population, and many people saw the potential for a Catholic takeover of the country if Kennedy were to be elected to office. Many people believed that Kennedy would be unable to separate church and state if elected. In contrast, Mormons make up about 2% of the population of the United States today. Most people did not foresee the potential for Mormonism to take over because of the small population of Mormons. Despite the fact that Romney was much more devout than Kennedy, the small number of followers of his religion made it a non-issue in many people's eyes.
Additionally, people highlighted Kennedy's religion more than they did Romney. During the election of 1960, many people, including evangelicals like Billy Graham and Bill Bright feared that Kennedy's election would give the pope a "hotline to the White House". These people actively campaigned against Kennedy because they feared what his election could mean. In contrast, Democrats tried not to point out the nontraditional background of Romney. Obviously, this is because Romney was running against Barack Obama, who, as an African American, was another nontraditional candidate for president. Democrats didn't want to alienate Romney because they wanted to avoid the inevitably linked alienation of Obama. Because of this, both Republicans and Democrats avoided making an issue of Romney's Mormonism, which was vastly different than Kennedy's experience in 1960.
Overall, though Kennedy won his election and Romney did not, this is not evidence that Romney had a more difficult time overcoming religious persecution to get to the presidential office. In actuality, he had an easier time than Kennedy in regards to setting aside religious differences with the American people to achieve success. Ultimately, Romney's failure to win the presidency is not linked to his religion but rather a wide number of other factors influencing the presidential election.
Sources:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/mitt-romneys-mormon-religion-a-non-issue-during-the-2012-presidential-election/2012/10/03/2b067322-0d7f-11e2-a310-2363842b7057_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f51d160b9ed8
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/may/30/mitt-romneys-religion-key-issue-bet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormons
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1960
http://egregores.blogspot.com/2010/12/real-reason-sarah-palin-is-dissing-jfk.html
https://www.amazon.com/Can-Mitt-Romney-Serve-Masters/dp/1449711995
I thought that the comparison between Mitt Romney's Mormonism and John F. Kennedy's Catholicism was very interesting. In addition, I think that the impact of religion in presidential terms was also shown in James Madison's term. President Madison was a Episcopalian who signed a federal bill to appropriate funds for Bible distribution. He also selected Congressional chaplains and he encouraged all public officials to openly declare their faith. However, this resulted in debate about the role of religion in government, and he later retracted his decisions, stating that selecting public officials based on religion was unconstitutional.
ReplyDeleteTeagan, I thought this was very interesting. I had never thought about this before and I think you did a great job of describing the topic. I think another interesting comparison that could be made with Romney would be in comparison to Trump. I say this because even though Romney's religion was not criticized, his wealth was. People argued that he was out of touch with the population because he was so rich, and during his campaign he tried to downplay his wealth. What's interesting is that four years later Trump was being praised for supposedly being such a great businessman and he would try to exaggerate his wealth throughout his campaign. This shift in the population's attitude would be an interesting thing to look further into.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this post Teagan! I had never realized that we have only had one non-Protestant president. I was reading more about how Romney campaigned (to see if he highlighted his religious beliefs or not) and found that he was very reserved in mentioning God/his beliefs on the campaign trail. Romney said the following when he was questioned about what doctrine he believed in: "I'm sorry, we're just not going to have a discussion about religion in my view". According to the Washington Post, Romney was open to discussing the practices of his faith, but not the doctrines of his religion.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2013/04/30/mitt-romney-opens-up-about-mormonism/?utm_term=.6e58d6fa6efb