2/27/2013 Should a politician's religious belief affect his electability?

Next Wednesday at the Ideas Cafe, we are discussing whether our political representatives' religious believes matter to their electorate.

The famous concern for John Kennedy being Catholic while he was running for president was somewhat smoothed by his promise to keep his religious believes separate from his approach to the affairs of the nation, that the Pope will have no influence in his political decisions.

Was that a good enough argument for the current more polarized views of the fundamentalist versus the atheist communities?

When the avid atheist Richard Dawkins advocated that most people are atheists in that they do not believe in Thor, Poseidon, and a whole number of other gods and that he has just gone one god further to believe there is no god,  he said he had hate email from people who believed in Thor and Poseidon.

What if a politician professes his belief in Poseidon ruling the seas and pushes for rituals to ensure safety of mariners instead of spending on coast guards?  Is he exercising his freedom of religion and acting according to what he believe is right for his community?

If he does not go that far, have the coast guard because he realizes that most citizens do not share his belief, but still hold personal believes that the rituals to Poseidon would be a good thing, should we have him represent us? How will we know whether his next decision may be more biased towards his belief in Poseidon?

While Mitt Romney was running for the president of the United States, everyone knows that he is a Mormon but he seldom made reference to that but instead, referred to god in the general sense.  Shouldn't he be put under the same or more pressure than John Kennedy since most people consider Mormonism as more on the fringe than Catholicism?

Most if not all religion centers around behaving in this life in order to have a better after life while atheists believe in making the most of the life we have now as there is no life to go to after our death.

These two approaches to living is so fundamentally opposed that it is hard to find common ground among the two.
 
Can the religious trust an atheist politician who do not believe that there is an almighty that knows all and therefore he better behave even if no other human knows what he is doing?

Can the atheist trust a religious politician that devalue this life for a non-existent future life and go by cryptic holy books interpreted by foreign religious leaders?

Maybe we should be forming states along our religious believes so that like minded beings can exist comfortably among themselves and have the political leaders that reflect their values?

Is that just going to build distrust and hatred among nations instead of making the gradual move towards world peace?

Is freedom to have one's own religious believes just a convenient way of saying that it is too bloodied to "settle" religious differences and we should "agree to disagree"?

Should someone who openly believes in witchcraft have a serious chance to be our political representative?  If not, why not?  How is witchcraft different than any of the other believes?