Religion is not a requirement to run for president

I find it hypocritical that Jim Ross Lightfoot, in his article ‘What I Want in a president’, writes “I want a president who will look at all people in our country as Americans, not as a group divided by their religious beliefs …” and then proceeds to say that the president should have to be from a specific belief system — Christian. Maybe he includes Muslims and Jews since they are also God-fearing. He excludes many other religious belief systems, ie. Buddhism and also the roughly 30 percent of religiously unaffiliated people living in the US.

Last time I checked the Constitution, being religious was not a requirement for becoming president. Religion isn’t necessary for a president to understand foreign policy or diplomacy or with any of the other multitude of things a president must deal with on a daily basis. I wonder if Mr. Lightfoot would vote for an atheist if they were obviously the best person for the job. I do think his article made some very good points about other topics, but I think his own belief system made him lose sight of the fact that religion and the Constitution are two very separate things.

Mark Drahozal

Cedar Rapids