A Religious 'Test' for Mitt Romney

Things being what they are these days, and with Mitt Romney currently the front-runner in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, it's not too surprising that objections to the former Massachusetts governor's Mormon religion would resurface, particularly in Iowa, where evangelicals wield so much influence in the Republican caucuses.

Romney was the target of both left- and right-wing Mormon-bashing in the last presidential campaign, proving once again that vulgar religious prejudice is one of the few areas of our national life where true bipartisanship still prevails. Even so, last week's attack on Romney by the influential evangelical publisher and writer Warren Cole Smith was notable — not only because Smith is closely aligned with religious factions that recently fueled the campaign to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices who had overturned a ban on same-sex marriage but also because he argued that it doesn't matter what Romney believes on social or economic issues.