The Doubts About Romney Remain
By
STAR PARKER
Founder & PRESIDENT
COALITION ON URBAN RENEWAL & EDUCATION
Mitt Romney gave his
long-anticipated speech about religion, which he called "Faith in
America."
The purported purpose
of the address was for the Republican presidential candidate and
former Massachusetts governor to dispel festering doubts about
himself because of his Mormon faith.
Unfortunately, I
believe it was a failed performance.
I think that Romney
and his team overestimated the extent to which his Mormonism has
been what is troubling his candidacy and underestimated the extent
to which his credibility has been the real problem.
Despite outspending
all the other candidates, the Romney candidacy hasn't ignited.
By contrast, former
New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has maintained his lead in national
polls, despite a background of three marriages, estranged children,
pictures of himself in drag, open support for gays, open support for
abortion, having endorsed a Democratic candidate for governor of New
York, and support for gun control.
But Giuliani has not
been running as a traditional conservative candidate. Romney has.
What dogs Romney is a
sense that he is not being honest about who he is.
In an election such
as this, where voters clearly are concerned about honesty and
transparency, candidates who do not score well in these areas are
paying a price.
In Romney's case,
that price reflects his credibility challenge in convincing
religious conservatives that his changed positions on abortion and
gays are for real.
It's not news that
Romney ran two political campaigns, one for the Senate in 1994 and
one for Massachusetts governor in 2002, in which he campaigned
openly and clearly as pro-Roe v. Wade and pro-abortion rights.
Suddenly, in 2004, as a result of some kind of epiphany tied to
embryos and stem-cell research, he opposed abortion.
Similarly regarding
gay rights, Romney has a paper trail expressing support that strains
the credibility of his current stance in support of traditional
values and family.
Given persistent
doubts about the sincerity of Romney's stands on these two issues,
both of central concern to religious conservatives, it is
astonishing that he would make a major speech about his views on
religion and faith in America and not mention either.
Yes, he clarified,
regarding his Mormon faith, that "no authorities of my church" would
influence his presidential decisions. But this tells us who he is
not. We need to know who he is.
And here Romney left
us with platitudes about religion in America with which few of any
stripe would disagree.
Despite his assurance
that his commitment to religious liberty does not mean that he sees
no place for religion in public life, he ducked the hard questions
about what this means.
The boldest he could
get was to say we should continue to acknowledge the Creator on "our
currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history," and in
public displays during holidays.
But despite noting
family breakdown as one of the challenges of our generation, he
never mentioned the importance of the preservation of the
traditional family, never mentioned abortion and never mentioned his
personal concern about either.
It feeds the doubts
about Romney in that, in my experience, those who have had a change
of heart about abortion are among the most passionate and committed.
It certainly is my personal experience, and what I have seen in the
work I do with crisis pregnancy centers around the country.
But Romney didn't
give a hint that this is something that keeps him up at night.
Comparisons have been
made with John Kennedy's speech during his 1960 presidential
campaign in which he addressed concerns about his Roman Catholic
religion.
Romney could have
clearly contrasted himself with Kennedy, who made a point to say
that religion did not belong in public life and decried the fact
that questions about religion were diverting attention from the
"real issues" of the campaign.
And he might have
pointed out that the Kennedy presidency marked the beginning of a
great cultural decline in America. Just one point of comparison: In
the early 1960s, 3 percent of white babies were born to unwed
mothers, compared with almost 30 percent today, and 24 percent of
black babies were born to unwed mothers, compared with 70 percent
today.
Romney's observation
that "freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom"
and that "freedom and religion endure together or perish alone" was
not something I would expect to hear from someone of deep faith.
Religion endures any
circumstance. Faith exists independent of freedom. It survives the
darkest, dankest prison cell. But freedom allows it to flourish.
I think Romney, with
this speech, confirmed rather than dispelled the doubts about his
faith and conservatism that have troubled his campaign. If the point
was to fix his credentials as a bona fide conservative leader, he
failed.
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Star Parker is president of the
Coalition on Urban Renewal & Education and author of the new book
White Ghetto: How Middle Class America Reflects Inner City Decay.
Prior to her involvement in social
activism, Star Parker was a single welfare mother in Los Angeles,
California. After receiving Christ, Star returned to college,
received a BS degree in marketing and launched an urban Christian
magazine. The 1992 Los Angeles riots destroyed her business, yet
served as a springboard for her focus on faith and market-based
alternatives to empower the lives of the poor.
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