Should personal religious beliefs shape policy choices?
Friday, February 3, 2012 at 12:02AM 
America is a religiously diverse country, where a broad range of faiths are practiced and accepted. With the probable choice of Mitt Romney as the Republican candidate for the highest office, we’ll have a test of just how much religious diversity Americans accept.
Romney’s rise—and the rising prominence of Mormons in popular culture—has placed the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the spotlight. Using data from the Pew Research Center, this week we’ve examined Mormons’ political beliefs, their views of life in America, the LDS church as a Christian faith, and issues of gender equality in Christianity writ large.
The focus on Mormons is the most recent example of a perennial question in American history: How much religious diversity is a good thing? To what extent should our personal religious beliefs dictate our responses to problems, decisions, and challenges? How far does religious acceptance go?
On Thursday, President Obama addressed these issues in his remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., an annual event held on the first Thursday of February. Traditionally, the president is one of the featured speakers. Yesterday, he said, in part: “We know that part of living in a pluralistic society means that our personal religious beliefs alone can’t dictate our response to every challenge we face. But in my moments of prayer, I’m reminded that faith and values play an enormous role in motivating us to solve some of our most urgent problems, in keeping us going when we suffer setbacks, and opening our minds and our hearts to the needs of others.”
Obama added: “We can’t leave our values at the door. If we leave our values at the door, we abandon much of the moral glue that has held our nation together for centuries, and allowed us to become somewhat more perfect a union.”
What are those values? Obama cited several, including fairness (Wall Street must play by the same rules as Main Street), shared responsibility, the moral responsibility of those with more to give more, equal opportunities for all, caring for the poor and those on the margins of society, and treating others as you want to be treated.
He concluded: “These values are old. They can be found in many denominations and many faiths, among many believers and among many non-believers. And they are values that have always made this country great—when we live up to them; when we don’t just give lip service to them; when we don’t just talk about them one day a year.”
Are the values the president mentioned still important in America?
Do we just give them lip service?
Can common values unite us?
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Originally published at www.OurValues.org, an online experiment in civil dialogue.
Reader Comments (1)
The government is incapable of taking the place of people without doing great damage along the way. This is the great divide between democrats and republicans. Democrats want to mandate the confiscation of wealth from one group and indiscriminately spread it out among anoher group. This cannot work because it does not take into account want and abilities on an individual basis. Thus it encourages fraud, idleness and greed.
One of my sons is married and has 4 children. One year he worked part time while going to school. His employment took out 300 dollars for federal tax's that year. When my son filed his tax return, he got back 9500 dollars (nine thousand five hundred dollars). No one asked him if he needed it. The government just assumed it would replace the family in taking care of my son based on the number of children. Thanks, tax payers for the free gift to my son. This means I don't have to help him.