I’ve noticed that this year in the mainstream press there are far more articles than ever before about the lack of religious diversity among the candidates for U.S. President.

It’s certainly not news that those who seek our country’s highest office are always professed Christians of one brand or another, usually standard issue Protestant. Republican Mitt Romney’s Mormonism caused a stir for a brief moment in time, precisely because it’s not the kind of Christianity that Americans are accustomed to hearing about. Defending his beliefs against the fundamentalist Christians who are extremely vocal and influential in his conservative party, Romney used the opportunity to bash those of us who are atheists or agnostics.

In one of the more nonsensical statements of his presidential bid, Romney said that “freedom requires religion.” Nothing could be further from the truth: Freedom demands freedom from religion and from the influence of religion in the political arena.