Republican presidential candidate, Senator Ted Cruz, said last month that he firmly believes any person who aspires to become the President of the United States must fear God and begin his day with prayer.
Speaking at the National Religious Liberties Conference in Iowa, Cruz was part of a panel comprised of other GOP presidential candidates who met to discuss the ways in which Christians are being persecuted in America and world over.
After sharing some extremist, controversial opinions about homosexuality, rightist pastor Kevin Swanson presented Cruz to the audience, while asking him how important it is for the President to submit himself before Jesus Christ, as He is “the king of the President of the United States.”
“Any president who doesn't begin every day on his knees isn't fit to be commander-in-chief of this country,” responded Cruz.
Christianity has been part of Cruz’s political identity since the start. Since he was elected to the United States Senate in 2012, Cruz has been regularly seen at conservative Christian gatherings and heard on similar radio programs, where he has repeatedly denounced liberals and radical atheists, who he believes are wrongly trying to take religion out of the public sphere. Rafael Cruz, his father and an evangelical pastor, has also stirred controversy in recent years with his despicable anti-gay sermons and baseless attacks on President Barack Obama. While responding to Swanson, Cruz stopped short of explicitly suggesting that atheists or nonbelievers should be barred from serving any post in a public office.
Atheists are one of the most underrepresented political groups in the United States. According to a recent survey by Pew Research Center, approximately three percent Americans identify as atheist while four percent identify as agnostic, all part of the roughly 23 percent that says they have no religious affiliation.
Despite these figures, there are no openly atheist members of Congress and only a handful of American politicians admit to having no religious affiliation themselves. While Cruz’s response about the political viability of nonbelievers may be dismissed as a personal opinion and not considered a legal analysis, his views aren’t in fact out of line with the American mainstream. According to a Gallup poll that was published earlier this year, a majority of 58 percent Americans would be willing to vote for an atheist presidential candidate. This is a four percent increase from a similar survey that was carried out in 2012.
Photo Credits: Christian Post
