It may strike you as quaint and perhaps a little naive that the Constitution boasts “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust” considering the political climate of the last twenty years, but then, Fred Thompson is quaint and perhaps a little naive.
I’m about as far as one can get from being a moon-eyed member of the messianic mole cult, but I would be remiss not to concede a newfound grudging respect for the man for declaring – at the start of a race that is far from certain – that he does not attend church on a regular basis, and has no plans to use his religion as a political weapon. If he follows through with this, there will be no McCain/Romney-esque insincere solicitations of the shrill fundamentalist vote, no Huckabee/Brownback-style Christ-offs for the benefit of James Dobson and Pat Robertson, no Bush-league “Jesus is my favorite philosopher” hogwash. In one singular, stunning way he’ll be closer to the Democrats and founding fathers than any major Republican since the Nixon era…
…which was the last time he held office. You know, maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that Thompson took up acting for a decade or three.
Is this political suicide for the Hollywood golden boy? This would seem to run counter the modern GOP dictum that “if the rapture set ain’t happy, ain’t no one happy” – and making the kind of fringe reality-and-constitutionally-based statements he is isn’t likely to make the nutters happy. Or is it as bad as all that? Will their dissatisfaction with all major candidates keep them away from the polls, or if they do vote, will it level the playing field? The comments of one Christian, at least, offers a glimmer of hope:
“As long as he was acclimated in some kind of church, involved in the church, that’s very important,” said Jamie Darnell, 27, of Greenville.
