Judging candidates on faith disrespects them, our religious diversity

Playing the race or gender card is rightly criticized. It involves unfairness. What about playing the religion card? Do citizens use a religion test and are politicians obliged to play their cards according to the generally accepted rules of the game? Hawai'i's multi-religious environment provides an advantageous perspective on this issue.

The presidential campaign has gone through several phases. Mike Huckabee touted his Baptist commitments and Mitt Romney had to defend his Mormon beliefs as allied with dominant Christian beliefs and American values. The most recent phase has been Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama displaying the intimate details of their own religious faith in TV interviews and before various religious groups.

Political campaigns have become like reality shows. We know that the correlation between private matters of religious belief and political performance is unpredictable, yet we are curious and find the intimate details irresistible.

Is this a politically healthy spectacle? Should the issue of religion or faith come under public scrutiny in political campaigns? A religion test for political office was rejected by the early founders. Legally, freedom of religion is guaranteed, an established faith is prohibited, and no privileges can be conferred because of religion (or the absence of it).

In America, the test involves Christianity. Unofficial and informal though it may be, it amounts to a kind of religious discrimination. It promotes practices involving various degrees of intolerance. Should the majority ignore these undesirable and unnecessary consequences?

In a democracy where more than 80 percent of citizens affirm belief in God and citizens find it appropriate to use their faith as a standard for political office, the brute reality continues to be that candidates either conform to such expectations or face elimination. Not only are agnostics, skeptics, and atheists excluded, so are Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Daoists, and others.

Religions typically claim ultimacy in central aspects of a believer's life. The oath of office, however, requires a pledge to have human secular laws assume sovereignty in political governance. Do we want to claim that faith in God is a virtue of citizenship and that such a virtue is required for political office? Should monotheism be assumed to be the basis for ethical truths necessary for political life? Are Christians more moral than those of other faiths and more upstanding than those 10 to 15 percent of the people who do not subscribe to any religious belief?

Should a society engage in practices that exclude not only from public office but alienate from public discourse references to those who do not align themselves with theistic beliefs? Participants in these longstanding religious traditions have no presence on the political map, even though they are present throughout the country.

Do we want to educate the young to misunderstand the values expressed in the Constitution and documents such as the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights? Basic freedoms, including freedom of religion, do not require any religious commitment.

Should we support a hostile cultural disposition to those who do not embrace any faith or religious belief?

Does a Christian-based society assume a position of superiority in the world of spirituality while typically being quite uninformed about other faiths? How can one assume that the most profound beliefs are those of one's own faith without engaging in a serious examination of the spiritual resources of others?

Shouldn't citizens and candidates be politically experienced enough to resist the present opportunism in an articulate, principled and charitable way? The religion test is not to our credit nor helpful for the commonwealth now or in the future.

Would not the common good of the country and the world be served by encouraging people through education to understand and appreciate the wider world of spiritual traditions? The decision of the founders to have laws and government operate independently from the authority of any religious world view provides the conditions to become knowledgeable about religions, not just be conditioned by circumstances into a belief system.

The importance of religion to people is uncontested. But the ongoing practice in the United States (and other places) of judging political viability on the basis of religious preferences disrespects both persons, principles, the diversity of religious traditions present in our society, and confuses the nature of political responsibility.

Rights and virtues can be but need not be related to religion. We are fortunate that our laws and policies help to secure rights and protect them against interference from discrimination. But they need our help, our clarity of mind and sensibility.

Alertness to the inappropriateness of playing the religion card is a part of civic responsibility for everyone, a part of the public good. Hawai'i exemplifies a multi-religious environment that can serve as a model for advancing this good.

Don Blakeley is a resident of Honolulu and retired professor of philosophy. He wrote this commentary for The Advertiser. Reach him at dblakehawaii@gmail.com.