CNN asked renowned psychiatrist Dr. Alvin Poussaint why religion remains an issue for presidential candidates despite the nation's promise of spiritual freedom.Poussaint, the director of the media center of the Judge Baker Children's Center at Harvard University, is an expert on America's race relations, prejudice and diversity issues. His edited responses are below:
CNN: The United States boasts that it's the land of the free and a great melting pot where all are created equal. So why does [Republican presidential candidate former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt] Romney have to give this speech in 2007?
Poussaint: Well, for the same reason that we had slavery for 250 years. We didn't always live in our real lives by what we said in the Constitution. The people who wrote the Constitution were white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. And we tend to go with what we feel safe with and we are more afraid of the unknown. All of our presidents except Kennedy were white Anglo-Saxon Protestants because people wanted to vote into power people who were like them. And I am talking white people, because until 1966, black people were disenfranchised. They wanted to vote into power people who were like them to be sure to maintain power and not have someone come in with ideas different from theirs on how the country should work. Can you imagine what would happen if there was a Buddhist up there running for president? Or a Muslim?
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