Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul talked about the role of faith if they were elected president.
Near the close of CNN's Republican debate in Jacksonville, Fla., an audience member asked the candidates how their religious beliefs would affect their role in the White House.
Ron Paul: "Well, my religious beliefs wouldn't affect it. My religious beliefs affect my character in the way I treat people and the way I live."
Mitt Romney: "The Creator has endowed us with certain unalienable rights" and he would seek to protect those rights.
"The conviction that the founders, when they wrote the Declaration of Independence, were writing a document that was not just temporary and not just for one small locale but really something which described the relationship between God and man -- that's something which I think a president would carry in his heart."
Newt Gingrich: "Anyone who is president is faced with decisions so enormous that they should go to God. They should seek guidance. Because these are decisions beyond the ability of mere mortals to truly decide without some sense of what it is we should be doing."
"If you're truly faithful, it's not just an hour on Sundays or Saturdays or Fridays. It's in fact something that should suffuse your life, to be a part of who you are."
He also said there has been a war on religion, particularly on Christianity, and leadership should stand up for religious freedom.
Rick Santorum: "Faith is a very, very important part of my life, but it's a very, very important part of this country ... so when you say, well, faith has nothing to do with it, faith has everything to do with it. If our president believes that rights come to us from the state, everything government gives you, it can take away."
In other religion news
- Mitt Romney expounded on his Mormon beliefs during a conference call with Florida conservatives. A CNN blog says callers asked Romney how his faith had shaped his success as a businessman and his political career. Romney spoke about "a conviction that life is eternal, that your family is your greatest prize, that ultimately what we accomplish in life is of little significance compared to the interests of the savior Jesus Christ and his purposes."
- The Columbus Dispatch notes that all of the GOP candidates are stressing their "family values." According to the Dispatch, "That's why Newt Gingrich points to his religious conversion when asked about cheating on his wife. It's why Mitt Romney highlights his 43-year marriage, and Rick Santorum is photographed with his seven smiling children." It points out that even Ron Paul has released a "statement of faith."
