On the Subject of the Candidates' Religious Views ...

Yesterday, Bridget, Jonathan, and I had an interesting discussion on how relevant a candidate's religious views are -- or aren't -- to the campaign. Specifically, we were talking about Mike Huckabee, who alone among the presidential candidates is asked about the tenets of his faith, including such matters as who goes to heaven or hell, and what's a real Christian anyway?

Well, imagine if we learned that Huckabee currently attends a church where the following are preached:

• A commitment to a "White Value System"
• Pledge Allegiance to All White Leadership Who Espouse and Embrace the White Value System

And what's more, what if Huckabee's church had named, oh, David Duke as its man of the year for 2007, saying he "truly epitomized greatness," and praising him for his "integrity and honesty."

Think that would raise some public concern?

If so, then perhaps it's time everyone stopped asking Huckabee about his religious preferences, and instead turned their attention to Barack Obama. Those quotes above come not from Huckabee's church, which has a history of commitment to racial equality, but to Barack Obama's -- I just substituted the word "White" for "Black" and David Duke's name for Louis Farrakhan's.

As London's Spectator explains in this article, Obama's parish, Trinity United Church of Christ, and its pastor, spout some rather odious racialist rhetoric. And as Richard Cohen notes in his weekly column (which will appear in tomorrow's Daily News), Obama's church magazine recently honored Farrakahn, the rabid race-baiter and anti-Semite whose own church's theology holds that white people are a race of devils created by an evil scientist.

Now, in yesterday's discussion, Jonathan raised the remote possibility that someone who thinks members of X or Y religion won't be saved might, in public office, not treat those people very well. It's a fair point, in theory and in history, but as I responded, there's no evidence for that concern among modern American Baptist leaders. Moreover, who goes to heaven is not the president's decision to make -- so his opinion on the matter is irrelevant to our election.

A far more troubling concern, though, is a would-be president who belongs to a church that espouses arguably racist or anit-Semitic views. Obama claims to not share these views, and if presssed, he will no doubt explicitly distance himself from them. (He'll probably also condemn his pastor's visit, with Farrakhan, to Muammar el-Qaddafi in 1984.) But is that good enough, when he hasn't protested these odious views all the years he was sitting in the pews?

Would it be enough if Huckabee attended a similar, white church?

Or is it only conservative Christians whose religious preferences are scrutinized this way?