Last December, Mitt Romney made a speech addressing concerns about his Mormonism, in which he said:

Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone. …

It is important to recognize that while differences in theology exist between the churches in America, we share a common creed of moral convictions. And where the affairs of our nation are concerned, it’s usually a sound rule to focus on the latter – on the great moral principles that urge us all on a common course. Whether it was the cause of abolition, or civil rights, or the right to life itself, no movement of conscience can succeed in America that cannot speak to the convictions of religious people.

We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion. But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They are wrong.

The founders proscribed the establishment of a state religion, but they did not countenance the elimination of religion from the public square. We are a nation ‘Under God’ and in God, we do indeed trust.

We should acknowledge the Creator as did the Founders – in ceremony and word. He should remain on our currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history, and during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places. Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our constitution rests. I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us from ‘the God who gave us liberty.’

Throughout the speech, Romney kept referring to America as a nation of Christians, making no reference to anyone who was not a believer–you get the feeling that such Americans either don’t exist, or else that they are the shadowy someones that Romney suggests are trying to steal god away from the real Americans.

After the speech, it was pointed out to him that he had excluded atheists from his speech; Romney reacted as if he didn’t understand what was being said. And it may be exactly like that–that people with such strong religious beliefs are blind to the exclusion they impose on the non-religious.

Surprisingly, Romney is now expressing a small degree of regret for that exclusion, though a close look at the statement and Romney’s overall opinions makes one wonder exactly what he means by it:

Upon reflection, I came to understand that while I could defend their absence from my address, I had missed an opportunity . . . an opportunity to clearly assert that non-believers have just as great a stake as believers in defending religious liberty. If a society takes it upon itself to prescribe and proscribe certain streams of belief — to prohibit certain less-favored strains of conscience — it may be the non-believer who is among the first to be condemned. A coercive monopoly of belief threatens everyone, whether we are talking about those who search the philosophies of men or follow the words of God.

This statement is nice, but it is rather weak and tempered–not to mention that it still demonstrates a lack of understanding on Romney’s part. For example, “it may be the non-believer who is among the first to be condemned”? It “may” be? Earth to Romney: it already is. In a country where no one without Christian beliefs has even the slimmest chance to approach a position of leadership, where religion is infused into the public debate to an enormous degree, where extremist religious forces are constantly trying to inject religious themes, practices, doctrine and monuments into courts, schools, and government offices as well as the public square, non-believers are constantly under a fire that represents such a natural state to many believers that they cannot see it any more than they can see the air around them.

In fact, the state constitutions or bills of rights in Maryland, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee all require a belief in god in order to hold political office in those states; Arkansas and Maryland constitutions both say that you cannot be a witness before a court unless you believe in god. These laws may be trumped by the 6th Article of and the First Amendment to the federal constitution, but if such a case were to be brought to today’s supreme court, I would not bet on such an outcome.

Does Romney really believe that non-believers are not condemned? Homosexuals and Muslims are heartily condemned in American society, and yet both of those hated groups are considered far more desirable than atheists. A recent survey showed that nearly half of all Americans view atheists as the most “dangerous or threatening” of all groups in the country, that atheists are the most distrusted and disapproved-of group. Atheists are excluded from many social organizations, including the Boy Scouts–excluded in a way that if you substituted the word “Christian” for the word “Atheist” in their charters, there would be a huge public outcry. This in a nation where the 80% majority cries persecution, claiming there is a “war” being waged against their religion because retailers say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.”

It is also questionable as to what Romney means by “religious liberty” in his recent statement; he obviously detests secularism, so does he mean that atheists and agnostics have a vital self-interest at stake which can only be protected by allowing the unfettered injection of religion into public and government arenas? I’d love to hear some clarification by Romney on this. But it seems to me that Romney is simply taking the opportunity to sound conciliatory, while in fact trying to tell non-believers that they’d better stop trying to defend secularism, or else their own belief systems could come under attack.