" ...... no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
If someone were proposing a Federal law to disqualify Mormons or anyone else from office on the basis of their religion, this passage would be relevant. It restricts the government, not individual voters. An individual voter is perfectly free to reject or select a candidate on the basis of religion, skin color, how they part their hair, the size of their ears [cough] ...
That doesn't mean that it's a smart thing to do, only that the law (quite rightly) has nothing to say about it.
You are taking that reference of Article VI, paragraph 3, out of context of the evolution of the discussion. Here was my original statement:
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The way I interpret Matthew 22:21 is ....
When you are electing a Pastor or a Pope, pay attention to his religious beliefs.
When you are electing a secular leader of a Secular State, pay attention to his secular political positions.
16 posted on Friday, July 08, 2011 1:03:12 PM by Polybius
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Another poster pointed out that the Founders never intended a purely "secular" state.
I admited that "secular" was a poor choice of words and then substituted the word "nondenominattional" which was EXACTLY what the Framers of the Constitution intended ..... as demonstrated by Article VI, paragraph 3.
Thus, the quoting of Article VI, paragraph 3.
A voter, of course, can vote however he d@mn well pleases, for any reason he pleases, including, "I'm not voting for any F#^&*# (insert religious, racial or ethnic slur here)"
From a purely tactical perpective, such language, when uttered publicly, hurts your own candidate as most of 21st Century America rejects the notion that a person's religious denomination should be held against him. (Unless, of course, his religious denomination advocates blowing up infidels.)