Watching Mitt Romney’s big Mormon Speech this morning, I found myself unsurprised that I was unmoved; one probably wasn’t going to like this speech terribly unless one were already decided for Mitt Romney. I was (moderately) surprised, however, at how utterly cynical and offensive Romney’s speech ended up being. In short, if we didn’t know it before, we now know that in Mitt Romney’s America, there is no room for those without “faith.” What’s more — and this we already did know — Mitt Romney is willing to mislead people about his religion, while categorizing all follow-up questions about his religion as a form of “religious test.”

The most remarkable thing about Romney’s address — and even folks at National Review picked this out, notably Ramesh Ponnuru — is that is wrote atheists and agnostics out of the American nation. Whereas even President Bush, whose own cynical politics have done so much to pit believers versus non-believers, has long gone out of his way to include “good people of no faith at all” in his vision of America. While the president’s need to qualify that phrase with the word “good” might be offensive, it’s a warm embrace of the faithless compared to Romney’s declaration that “freedom requires religion.”

Got that? Those of us who don’t believe in Christianity, those of us who don’t believe in God, those of us who don’t believe in the divinity of human-written holy books have no place in the American experiment, can’t be relied on to uphold the principles of our Constitution, and don’t have the morality necessary to keep a Republic.

If any of this is not what the former governor meant, by all means let him correct himself. I emailed the Romney campaign this morning asking where atheists and agnostics fit into his vision of America. I’ve gotten no response of any kind, and I don’t expect one. Marginalizing non-believers is too central to Romney’s primary strategy for him to speak one word on their behalf. Romney may say that, “A President must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States.” But his vision of who constitutes “the people” includes only the faithful.

As to Romney’s disingenuousness about his own religion, one need only note that the word “Mormon” appeared but once in his speech. (Kennedy mentioned the word Catholic roughly 20 times.) What’s more, he pulled this little number.

On the one hand, he declared:

There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church’s distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution. No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes President he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths.

So, presidential candidates shouldn’t delve into the doctrines of their churches? I suppose the key word is “distinctive.” Romney is more than willing to talk about the doctrines of his faith when it might accrue to his benefit. Such as … a paragraph earlier in the same speech:

There is one fundamental question about which I often am asked. What do I believe about Jesus Christ? I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind.

It wasn’t quite as misleading as his comments about the Bible in the last debate (where he declared it the “word of God,” despite major differences Mormons have with Christians over the reliability of the Bible).

So, it’s OK to talk about the tenets of Mormonism so far as it presents Evangelical Christians with the impression that there are no major differences between the two faiths. Talking about it any further, dastardly religious test. Got it.

There was at least one line from Romney, though, that was worth the price of admission: “Americans do not respect believers of convenience.”

Amen, brother.

UPDATE: David Frum has a related observation about picking and choosing among theological questions that are “appropriate” to ask. If belief in Jesus is a prerequisite to the presidency, what else might be?

UPDATE II: Another interesting take: “threatened with political … exile.”