Religious Discrimination & American Voters

Robert Jeffress, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, explained why he urged fellow evangelicals to support Gov. Rick Perry over Mitt Romney, whom Jeffress termed "a non-Christian" due to his Mormon faith. Jeffress quoted John Jay, the first chief justice of the Supreme Court and co-author of the Federalist Papers, who famously wrote, "It is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation, to select and prefer Christians for their rulers." Jeffress said this proved that a religious test for voters was both appropriate and consistent with American history since, "according to Jay, preferring a Christian candidate is neither bigoted nor unconstitutional."

While selecting whom to vote for based on religion is not unconstitutional, the views of many of our nation's founders were in fact dominated by religious bigotry. Just as Jeffress refuses to see Mormons as Christians, Catholics were deemed non-Christians by most early Americans, including John Jay. Jay, in fact, tried to exclude Catholics from the protection of New York State's constitution. In 1777, Jay proposed that Catholics be denied the right to own land or to vote, unless, "they renounce and believe to be false and wicked, the dangerous and damnable doctrine, that the pope, or any other earthly authority, have power to absolve men from sins." Although that proposal was rejected, he was able to insert a provision barring Catholics from immigrating to the state if they did not, "renounce all allegiance and subjection to all and every foreign king, prince, potentate, and State in all matters, ecclesiastical as well as civil."