Southern Voters

A friend pointed me at this NPR story, In South, GOP Voters Balance Faith, Defeating Obama. It's short, but it has a lot of quotes from religious people who are trying to figure out who to vote for. Here are a few:

"When people read the Constitution and say, 'Oh, we get our rights from the Constitution,' that is wrong," he said. "The Constitution does not give us rights. It recognizes rights that are written on our heart because we are a creature of God. That's where we get our rights from."

When asked how important a role religion will be in the presidential race, Robinson didn't hesitate. "I think it should be the most important value to bring back our country the way it needs to be," she said.

"I really don't think that a nation that falls on Muslim leadership, potentially, is going to be a nation that's going to survive," she said.

And then there's this: ""I just don't like the directions that he's headed in, and personally I don't think he qualifies to be president under the 'natural born citizen.' In the Constitution it states that you have to have two parents that were born in the United States, so that there's no alternative allegiance by any member of the family," Gentile said."

and thankfully NPR points out, "The Constitution actually doesn't say that."

I bet most of these people don't know about Article Six of the Constitution, particularly paragraph three which reads: "The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."