Michelle Bachmann is "running for the presidency."

When Presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann was recently asked to explain her past statements on homosexuality, she insisted that she is “running for the presidency of the United States!” Well, that certainly clears up her position on homosexuality, doesn’t it? Is there anyone out there, who is actually paying attention to the world around them, that didn’t know that Mrs. Bachmann was running for President? I didn’t think so.   

It’s quite amazing how politicians can so readily be asked such clear, straight forward questions, and then so blatantly refuse to answer them. Even more amazing is how journalists these days actually allow politicians to get away with such question dodging, as if they were thinking to themselves “Oh you don’t want to answer that question? That’s fine by me, it’s not as though I’m supposed to be asking tough questions or anything.” 
Bachmann’s answer that she is “only” running for President, and not some sort of moral judge, seems to have satisfied a great many people. As long as she doesn’t “judge them” what’s the big deal, right?

After all, even if she really does believe that homosexuals are in “personal bondage, personal despair and personal enslavement” (as she told the EdWatch National Education Conference in 2004), these are her own “personal” religious beliefs which have nothing to do with her ability to do the job which she is applying for.
This argument seems pretty sound – if you’re applying for a job at Wal-Mart! Mrs. Bachmann however is not applying for a job at Wal-Mart, where her personal religious beliefs wouldn’t affect her ability to stock shelves, ring the register, or sell flat screen TVs; she is applying for a job which would make her the most powerful human being on earth.

It’s true that America has no religious test for public office. This is one of the great founding principles of our nation; however, this doesn’t mean that within the realm of public opinion there isn’t an “unofficial” religious test. Don’t believe me? Just ask President Barack Obama, who was written off by many people as being “unqualified” because he was a “secret Muslim.” Of course no one ever produced any evidence for this claim, but since when do Americans need evidence to make outrageous claims? The 9/11 “Truthers” certainly don’t.

Anyone, regardless of their beliefs and religious or non-religious affiliations, should be able to run for president. That’s just a given. However, this doesn’t mean that we, the American public, have to buy into those beliefs or let politicians off the hook when we find out that what they profess is seemingly absurd. If you want to run for President, but worship the Klingon Messiah Kahless, that’s just fine; it is your right to worship a fictional, non-existent, galactic savior. However, if as a believer in Kahless, you also believe that several thousand years ago he personally handed down a collection of “infallible” holy texts to some ancient desert dwelling nomads, and that these texts instruct his followers to burn all homosexuals at the stake – by default, your personal beliefs have just become a part of public discourse.

If that’s not a “realistic” enough scenario for you, try and imagine a white Southerner running for President, who for decades claimed that the institution of slavery should be brought back because, like St. Augustine of Hippo, he believes that slavery is a part of God’s punishment for “the Fall” of Adam and Eve. Would you really buy into his “new” explanation that he is merely “running for President,” and that such beliefs would have no bearing on his job performance as the most powerful man on earth? Or try and imagine a guy running for President who had on multiple occasions claimed that women could only be “saved” by remaining barefoot and pregnant, as the New Testament epistle of 1st Timothy (2:12-15) declares. Would people brush off these statements as quickly as they have done with Bachmann’s position on homosexuality?

A Presidential candidate’s personal religious beliefs can be as rational or as outrageous as they wish, but when those religious beliefs cross the line from merely being personal beliefs, into beliefs that might affect other human beings in the form of public policy, then those beliefs become fair game for any criticism that the news media, journalists, skeptics, believers, and the voting public can throw at them.

Mrs. Bachmann is free to believe anything she wants. She can believe that the Klingon Messiah Kahless will return one day and set the galaxy free from tyranny. She can believe that Jesus is her own personal savior, and she can even believe that being gay is satanic; she just shouldn’t expect the voting public to believe that her “personal” beliefs don’t play a role in her ability to govern a nation of 300,000 million Americans. (Written on August 16, 2011.)