Why does Republican presidential candidate and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani feel no pressure to give a John F. Kennedy-style speech about his Catholic faith similar to the one that rival Mitt Romney gave in Texas yesterday about his Mormonism?
It’s an intriguing question that highlights the political gains that Catholics in the United States have made since 1960 — gains that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormon faith is officially called, can only hope (or pray) for.
Kennedy addressed Southern Baptists in his speech at a time when firey evangelical Protestant denominations still regarded the Catholic church with great suspicion.
Theologically they did not like the Catholic hierarchy; culturally they suspected Catholics for not joining their cruade against alcohol; and politically it was unheard of as Protestants had long had a monopoly on the White House.
No other Catholic since Kennedy has made it into the White House, but evangelical Protestants — once a Democratic base in the old South, now a key Republican base everywhere — have long since mended their political fences (if not their theological ones) with Roman Catholics.
They often share the same opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. And the conservative majority on the nine-member U.S. Supreme Court is all Catholic. Two were appointed by President George W. Bush, an evangelical Protestant.
“Protestants have come a long way in accepting the idea of a Catholic president. The remarkable change in American politics is that previous political differences between religious traditions have been replaced by political differences in the intensity of religious belief and practice,” said Scott Keeter of the Pew Research Center.
The “Religious Right”, as the evangelical wing of the Republican Party is often dubbed, has other issues with Giuliani, such as his support for abortion and gay rights. But it clearly has no issue with his Catholic faith.
It remains to be seen if the Mormons — whose faith is viewed in many evangelical circles as a cult that is actively “poaching” souls from the wider Christian flock with their active missionary work — can achieve the same degree of acceptance.
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Re: Huckabee tax plan raises eyebrows in US
Sun Jan 6, 2008 11:46am EST
By Ed Stoddard
MANCHESTER, N.H., Jan 6 (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s plan to eliminate all income taxes and replace them with a flat consumption tax has the support of martial arts guru Chuck Norris but few economic analysts.
Norris tells crowds that young conservative bloggers sent him e-mails about Huckabee’s tax plan, selling him on the man. (Additional reporting by Andrea Hopkins in Cincinnati; Editing by Bill Trott) (To read more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters “Tales from the Trail: 2008″ online at blogs.reuters.com/trail08/)
Response: By Al Barrs, Retired Education and Training Director, Florida
Chuck Norris is totally misinformed about Huckabee’s tax plan. His assumption that it is a good idea because he has been “e-mailed by young people” is also misleading and is not all of the story. A so called “consumption tax” or Federal sales tax would first be placed on top of the many State Sales Tax collections and would have retired people again paying the equivalent of employee and employer income tax even thought they now have no salary and receive no equivalent payments from their former employers. Retired citizens paid all required income and other Federal add on taxes during their work careers with the knowledge that once they retired that burden would be removed from their retirement and Social Security benefits. Huckabee’s Federal Sales Tax will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 to 25% of what individuals purchase on top of State Sales Tax of about 7%.
This ill conceived idea would bankrupt most retired citizens. With consumer, electric, utility, food, clothing, gasoline and other costs steadily rising retirees would soon see their available living funds cut by up to 50% in a short time. Retirees living on Social Security in particularly would be devastated. Those on Social Security and company retirement would live in poverty.
I have written Huckabee asking him to explain how his tax plan would work and how retiree and the poor would be provided for in order for them to eat, keep their homes and pay for other life necessities. He nor his staff have not responded to my request and I can only assume that my assumptions are correct, as stated above.
Al Barrs, Retired
- Posted by Al BarrsEducation Director
albarrs@wfeca.net
Greenwood, Florida
USA