Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Mitt, Muslims, and Mormons

Mitt Romney is in a bit of hot water over his comments that he would be unlikely to appoint a Muslim to a cabinet post. He is reported to have said:
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.
Muslims currently make up anywhere from 0.5 to 2.2 percent of the population of the U.S.

In 1953, Dwight Eisenhower appointed Ezra Taft Benson as his secretary of agriculture, making him the first Mormon cabinet secretary. At the time, there were approximately 1.2 million Mormons in the U.S., or approximately 0.75 percent of a total population of 160 million.

In 1969 Richard Nixon appointed George Romney, Mitt's father as his secretary of Housing and Urban Development. At that time, there were 2.8 million Mormons, approximately 1.4 percent of the population of the time.

Does Romney believe that these appointments were not "justified" because Mormons were too small a percentage of the U.S. population? Exactly what percentage of the population do you need in order to claim a position in the Romney cabinet?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's eye-opening that he would tie religious affiliation with a cabinet appointment - it says a lot about how he would lead: by polling. MCCAIN '08!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Praise be to allah. Bush has appointed enough member of the religon of peace to key positions in the White House. Between Clinton shifting the FBI's responsibility from terrorisim to chasing after Christian extremist and Bush opening his arms to all Islam, this country has a major secturity problem on it's hands.

Anonymous said...

HA! A muslim under a polytheist how rich...

Whats worse is the niether Muslims or Mormons bother to study each others religions to show that 'interfaith' is really just a waste of time.

Hehehehehe Im looking forward to the shock of these morons who realize that Monothiests & Polythiests arent meant to be together.