Ich Bin Ein Christian

What did Lloyd Bentsen say to Dan Quayle at the 1988 vice presidential debate? "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

Amen, Mitt Romney, who hoped to come across as Kennedy-esque in Texas.

Big Love is no JFK. No Ronald Reagan, either. At George H.W. Bush's presidential library and museum, Big Love made his profession of faith and tried to exhibit Kennedy's demeanor and Reagan's confidence. With Papa Bush looking on, Big Love made Big News in God's Country, Texas. Bob Jones must've been booked that day.

On live television, he confessed to being a Mormon. Some folks suspected as much, even the Southern Baptists still waiting for last year's Christmas card to arrive.

Now that the Religious Right seems sweet on Arkansas' ex-governor, Big Love feels the need to assure the Double R's that he is just like them. Meaning he's a Baptist like Huckabee, only different. A Christian by any other name, so to speak.

Big Love publicly proclaimed Jesus Christ as his savior. Joseph Smith's name never came up. Only once did he use the M-word.

For a candidate said to have crafted a powerful and unapologetic defense of faith, Romney always seems as if he's running away from his. Just as he reinvents himself to advance his political career, so too does he reinvent U.S. history when it suits him.

If elected, Big Love said he'll swear on a Bible and promise God he'll uphold the Constitution. Old or New Testament? Didn't say. What about the Book of Mormon? Dunno.

Big Love was supposed to demystify Mormonism. That's because a Pew Research Center survey in September found that 27 percent of respondents had a negative image of Mormonism. One poll showed that 35 percent of those surveyed wouldn't elect a Mormon. People often fear what they do not understand.

"I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it," he said. "My faith is the faith of my fathers. I will be true to them and to my beliefs." Which are? Dunno.

Big Love further blurred the line separating church and state. This delighted some fundamentalists but alienated some non-Christians. Scares the hell out of civil libertarians. Big Love made clear his man crush for John Adams. But some of us are still stuck on Thomas Jefferson.

He slipped into his speech that the Founders believed in "the inherent and inalienable worth of every life." Most Americans grow up learning that our Founders believed we were all born, as opposed to conceived, with certain unalienable rights. That Big Love can be tricky.

Our Founders had serious debates about religion. One at the North Carolina Convention in 1788 between Henry Abbot and James Iredell was on the question: "Could not the pope be president?" JFK, our first Catholic president, advocated the separation of church and state. Big Love promises a chicken in every pot and a creche in every public square.

Rather than elevate the faith debate, Big Love pandered to the Double R's. He should have cited from the spirited debate in 1788 between the Rev. Daniel Shute and Col. William Jones on religious tests and Christian beliefs.

Said Shute: "The Apostle Peter tells us that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is acceptable to him. And I know of no reason why men of such character, in a community of whatever denomination in religion … with other suitable qualifications, should not be acceptable to the people. The exclusion of a religious test in the proposed Constitution, therefore, clearly appears to me, sir, to be in favor of its adoption."

Voters learned little about Mormonism and more about the politician's need to manipulate the media to help steal votes from an advancing rival.

I assure you that it is not easy to be a Massachusetts Mormon in the Lone Star State trying to talk like a Massachusetts Catholic and act holier than an Arkansas Baptist. But Big Love has big plans.

Rhonda Chriss Lokeman (lokeman@kcstar.com) is a columnist for The Kansas City Star. To find out more about Rhonda Chriss Lokeman and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.