The 2016 Candidates for the Office of President of the United States of America

Religion has always played a major part in world events. In the current political environment in the United States it has become almost taboo to even mention it. We have a strong national heritage of freedom of choice in religion and a separation of church and state. There is no Established Church in the United States.

Some have come to interpret our heritage of separation of church and state to mean that religion must be totally stripped from any public mention. There even exists a group named the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

There is no legal requirement or definition of any sort concerning the religious affiliation of a candidate for the office of President of the United States of America. There is also no reason why we cannot know the religious affiliations of the candidates.

There are five political parties in the United States which are considered to be “major” parties. There are at least thirty-one minor political parties. The major groups are the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the Libertarian Party, the Green Party, and the Constitution Party.

Here is a listing of many of the current candidates for the office of President of the United States of America, with their known religious affiliations.

DEMOCRATIC PARTY

Hillary Clinton: United Methodist Church

Bernie Sanders: Jewish

Lincoln Chaffee: Episcopalian

Martin O’Malley: Roman Catholic

Jim Webb: Protestant

Lawrence Lessig: None stated

Jeff Boss: None stated

Harry Braun: None stated

Robby Wells: None stated

Dr. Willie Wilson: None stated

REPUBLICAN PARTY

Donald Trump: Presbyterian

Ben Carson: Seventh-day Adventist

Marco Rubio: Originally Mormon, now Roman Catholic

Jeb Bush:  Originally Episcopal, now Roman Catholic

Carly Fiorina: Originally Episcopal, now Non-denominational Christian

Ted Cruz: Southern Baptist

Lindsey Graham: Southern Baptist

John Kasich: Anglican

Chris Christie: Roman Catholic

Jim Gilmore: Methodist

Mike Huckabee: Southern Baptist

Bobby Jindal:  Roman Catholic

George Pataki: Roman Catholic

Rand Paul: Presbyterian

Mark Everson:  None stated

Jack Fellure: None stated

Andy Martin: None stated

Rick Santorum: Roman Catholic

LIBERTARIAN PARTY

No religious affiliation information was found for these candidates.
Marc Feldman
Steve Kerbel
Cecil Ince
Darryl Perry
Joy Waymire
Derrick Michael Reid
Rhett Smith

GREEN PARTY

Jill Stein: Not stated

CONSTITUTION PARTY
No religious affiliation information was found for these candidates.
Chad Kopple
J. R. Myers
Scott Copeland

Mitt Romney

This is not, never has been and never will be a political blog.  You will never know how I intend to vote in the upcoming national elections.  Sometimes, though, my posts may touch tangentially on politics as I discuss something else.  This post, for example, will be about the American politician Mitt Romney.
 
For those readers in other countries, as I write this on Tuesday night, the political caucuses in the State of Iowa are choosing the presidential candidates they favor for the nominations as representatives of the Republican and Democratic parties in the upcoming (2012) United States presidential election.   One of the Republican candidates is Mitt Romney, a Mormon.  The caucuses are politically important because they are the first test of the strengths of the various candidates with the voters.  There are still 49 other states and several territories which must also express their choices.

The nationally distributed newspaper, USA Today, had an article recently entitled"Christians are tough crowd for Romney." (The online title is "Mormon Romney struggles to win over Evangelical Christians.") Many Evangelicals are wary of voting for a Mormon because they do not consider Mormons to be Christians.

Actually, by law, there is no religious test for eligibility for the office of President of the United States of America.  The office could be held by a Hindu, or a Buddhist, or even an atheist, but it is understandable that voters would be most comfortable with a leader with whom they feel they share certain basic values and beliefs.

Mormons are known for their strong family values, strong work ethic, conservative social values, and non-orthodox religious doctrines.  They are led by a Prophet who speaks authoritatively for God.  They do not believe that revelation from God was completed within the Bible and have added additional scriptures.

Tomorrow, I will detail some of the reasons most Christian denominations do not feel that Mormons are Christian.

Addendum on 4 January 2011:
Last night in Iowa, Mitt Romney won the endorsement of Iowa Republicans as their choice for the position of candidate to represent the Republican Party in the 2012 United States Presidential election.  Mr. Romney edged out Rick Santorum, a Roman Catholic, by a margin of only 8 votes out of almost 125,000 votes cast.  The candidates now move to the state of New Hampshire.

The Democrats, as expected, gave their endorsement to the incumbent candidate, United States President   Barack Obama.