[Marguerite]

Nowhere in the US Constitution is written that the president have to be Catholic or Christian for that matter. Santorum points are irrelevant as far as the religious trend is concerned.

Gingrich, who is also Catholic, claims the right way to put out any controversy: the respect of the Constitution and its First Amendment and Sixth Article.

“Congress shall make NO LAW respecting an establishment of religion, or PROHIBITING the free exercise thereof ....”

Article VI

“NO RELIGIOUS Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

Period.

[aruanan]

Nowhere in the US Constitution is written that the president have to be Catholic or Christian for that matter. Santorum points are irrelevant as far as the religious trend is concerned.

Gingrich, who is also Catholic, claims the right way to put out any controversy: the respect of the Constitution and its First Amendment and Sixth Article.

“Congress shall make NO LAW respecting an establishment of religion, or PROHIBITING the free exercise thereof ....”

Article VI

“NO RELIGIOUS Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

Period.

You are entirely missing the point. Whereas under the Constitution, no one, as a condition of law, shall be required to pass a religious test for public office, it doesn't at all follow that the religion of a candidate, his degree of adherence to that professed religion or no religion at all, has or should have no relevance to the voting public or to the other candidates or that they or any of their supporters should be prohibited from referring to it or that if they do they are hypocrites or are being unConstitutional--the restriction in the Constitution is on the government in making by law a requirement for a religious test.

Imagine that someone's a closet-worshipper of Molech. Does it make any sense to say that he is just as qualified as any other candidate to hold public office in spite of being a participant in a religion that features the ritual sacrifice of living children to death by burning in metal hands of the Molech idol?

Imagine that his religion is Communism (and, yes, in spite of being atheistic, Communism is as much as religion as other atheistic religions). Does it make any sense to say that he is just as qualified as any other candidate to hold public office in spite of professing a religion the tenets of which call for the destruction of the nation and the government that he is running as a candidate to represent as chief executive?