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Very early in his campaign, a journalist asked Barack Hussein Obama about his middle name and if Americans, in a war with people with similar sounding names, would be comfortable with it. Obama laughed off the question by saying that Americans don’t care about middle names. But apparently they do if your middle name is Hussein. Soon after that email Inbox were flooded with messages alleging that he is a Muslim. Fox News went one step ahead and proclaimed that he studied at a Wahhabi madrasa during his childhood days in Indonesia. Obama’s campaign worked overtime to refute these allegations and even got a document signed from a group of religious scholars decrying the attacks. He had to come out and proclaim, time after time, that he is a Christian. Then there were attacks on the credibility church he belongs to in Chicago, United Church of Christ, that it was not a mainstream Christian church.
Mitt Romney dropped out of the presidential race two days after Super Tuesday. Choosing potent symbolism, he announced his decision in a speech at the annual Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) event. The reason he had to drop out is mainly because of his failure to win southern states where both himself and Mike Huckabee were vying for the conservative Christian votes. Romney projected himself as the true conservative choice who had the money and experience to go the distance. However, a lot of Christian voters had reservations about his Mormon religious beliefs. In a January 2008 survey by Wall Street Journal/NBC News, 50% Americans said that they would be very uncomfortable with a Mormon president.
John McCain, the Republican front runner pronounced Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson (influential Christian evangelical preachers) as “agents of intolerance” during his 2000 presidential run. He also called them out for “the evil influence that they exercise over the Republican Party.” He has never been able to salvage his image among Christian conservatives since then even though he pandered to the Christian right and even gave commencement speech at Falwell’s Liberty University in 2006. Mike Huckabee, an ex-pastor and now the only challenger to McCain, does not believe in evolution and frequently quotes Bible verses in his campaign speeches. He also believes that the American credo ‘In God We Trust’ was meant to be a religious proclamation and the basis of a Christian society in USA.
Above are but a few instances that portray the importance of religion in American political discourse. Seeing debates and discussions with candidates falling head over heels to show their religiosity makes a sorry picture. It is even more surprising to outsiders who are accustomed to seeing USA through Hollywood lenses and F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Now, compare that to India, supposedly a very religious society where people can have problems with Manmohan Singh’s policies but hardly with his religion. APJ Abdul Kalam can be a icon for millions of Indians and not have his religion come into picture. Vajpayee can win elections on a religious platform but his personal religious beliefs don’t come into picture. Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, a Christian, can win overwhelmingly a state where Christians constitute less than 2% of the total population.
USA might have a woman or a black president in 2008. What about a non-Christian or an atheist president?
Photo: USA Church Sign
