The American Debate: Romney still dogged by religious bigotry

It was only a matter of time before some bigot drew a bead on Mitt Romney and decreed him unfit to be president solely on the basis of his Mormon faith.

So it went the other day, when Southern Baptist minister Robert Jeffress took the stage at a conservative confab and introduced his friend Texas Gov. Rick Perry as "a genuine follower of Jesus Christ." Offstage, Jeffress was less cutesy. He told the media that, "by theological definition, Mormonism is a cult" and that born-again Christians "should always prefer a competent Christian to a competent non-Christian like Mitt Romney."

Perry has refused to distance himself from the minister's religious bigotry; he said Jeffress' introduction "hit it out of the park." And at least one prominent religious-right leader agreed. As Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council put it, "Evangelicals do not see Mormonism as Christianity," which obviously means Romney fails the religious test.

And yet, at least according to the Constitution, there isn't supposed to be such a test. Article VI states that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." Whatever happened to the conservative credo about hewing to the words of the Founding Fathers?

Romney has been dogged by the Mormon "issue" since he announced for the presidency five years ago. He has a right to feel frustrated. His faith should not be a disqualifying factor "by theological definition." I recognize that Perry is desperate to salvage his candidacy, but it is patently unconstitutional - and, according to many mainline Christian leaders, un-Christian - to engage in religious discrimination on the stump.

The bigotry tactic may be shrewd in the short run, of course. Roughly 45 percent of all Republican primary voters are conservative evangelical Christians, and they're probably as wary of Romney today as they were in 2008, when he drew only 11 percent of evangelicals' vote in the crucial South Carolina primary - and failed to crack 20 percent in any Southern primary. Even outside the South, the "cult" perception is endemic; in a summer Gallup poll, 22 percent of Americans said they would never vote for a Mormon.