Mitt Romney's Religious Test

Second Update - Wow. Only for Mitt Romney could this become a flip-flop story. Greg Sargent at TPM Election Central now has two sources confirming that they have separately heard Romney deny that he would consider appointing a Muslim to his Cabinet. Two Nevada Republicans report him making statements on the subject that at least on described as "racist."

Update - Mitt Romney has now said that he did not give the answer reported in the Christian Science Monitor and that he would certainly consider any qualified candidate, regardless of religion. That's good news. Interestingly, early defenses of Romney's statement came from folks who thought it was good that Romney was promising to exclude Muslims from the Cabinet. Now that Romney is clarifying that his intentions are actually the opposite, I'm wondering if they'll backtrack from their words of support.

Original Post - For a man who doesn't think his faith should be under scrutiny, Mitt Romney is apparently hesitant to extend the same courtesy to others. If you missed it, the former Bay State Governor has announced his unwillingness to appoint a Muslim to his Cabinet.

I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that "jihadism" is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, "...based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration."

This is problematic, to say the least.

Now let's just start with the fact that the Constitution has that tricky little "no religious tests" for public office clause. Running for office on a pledge to apply a religious test amounts to a pledge to violate the Constitution -- not my ideal quality in a President.

But that's hardly the end of the problems. Think about it this way -- Romney's reasoning is that Muslims are too small a share of the American population to deserve a Cabinet seat. Doesn't that sound a bit like the worst specter of affirmative action -- quotas -- being used to hold down a minority? If you think racial and gender quotas are a bad idea, Romney's stance here should be repugnant.

It doesn't even end there, though -- there are real implications of Romney's decision. Matthew Yglesias highlights just one. Zalmay Khalilzad, the former Ambassador to Iraq and the current UN Ambassador, is a Muslim. Under the Romney plan, his strong credentials aren't enough to merit a Cabinet level position. Presumably, he'd also have to undergo a conversion.