From Britain and America:

Skeptics at home and abroad are carping about Mitt Romney’s first major speech on religion. They should stop huffing and hyperventilating long enough to actually read it—a text that ranks as the most sober, sane, and historically informed view of religion and American democracy delivered thus far in the presidential campaign.

Many have tried to coax Mr. Romney, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts, to explain and defend his Mormon beliefs. Yesterday he declined the invitation. “To do so would enable the very religious test the Founders prohibited in the Constitution,” he said. “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.”

That welcome answer—the American solution to the question of religion and government—goes to heart of the American Creed. The driving aim of the separation of church and state is not to quarantine religion from public life, but to protect religious liberty for people of all faiths, or of no faith. Mr. Romney’s answer is anchored in the concepts of equality and the inalienable rights of conscience. It is established by the original text of the Constitution, in Article VI (“no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust”) and by the lead-off amendment to that text, the First Amendment (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”).

Mr. Romney’s answer is also long overdue. For years now most conservatives have kept their mouths shut as politicians or presidential advisors have played the religion card for Christian audiences—a disgraceful game I’ve witnessed up close. It has inflicted untold damage to the public understanding of America’s democratic heritage. In the recent YouTube campaign debate, for example, the Republican candidates were asked if they viewed the Bible as the word of God. Predictably, and pathetically, none of them appealed to this bedrock political doctrine: no religious test for public office.

Peggy Noonan thinks that Romney did…

Very, very well. He made himself some history. The words he said will likely have a real and positive impact on his fortunes. The speech’s main and immediate achievement is that foes of his faith will now have to defend their thinking, in public. But what can they say to counter his high-minded arguments? “Mormons have cooties”?

Romney reintroduced himself to a distracted country–Who is that handsome man saying those nice things?–while defending principles we all, actually, hold close, and hold high.

His text was warmly cool. It covered a lot of ground briskly, in less than 25 minutes. His approach was calm, logical, with an emphasis on clarity. It wasn’t blowhardy, and it wasn’t fancy. The only groaner was, “We do not insist on a single strain of religion–rather, we welcome our nation’s symphony of faith.” It is a great tragedy that there is no replacement for that signal phrase of the 1980s, “Gag me with a spoon.”

Beyond that, the speech was marked by the simplicity that accompanies intellectual confidence.

The Anchoress doesn’t think Romney’s speech will achieve its goal, which is to neutralize his Mormonism.

As far back as 2005, blogger Betsy Newmark was sounding the warning bell on Romney’s difficulties:

I have had a vision of what would happen if Romney were the Republican candidate. No one would attack him explicitly on his religion. That would be too crass. Instead, the media would run human interest stories on the history of the Mormon church, warts and all. We’d read again about Joseph Smith getting the word from the Angel Moroni with the Book of Mormon on golden plates. We’d learn about the persecution suffered by the early Mormons and the assassination of Joseph Smith and how Brigham Young led the Mormons across the country to Utah.

Vivid stories of the Mountain Meadow Massacre would appear on the History Channel. The history of Mormons and polygamy would be introduced in segments on the evening news as well as the fact that the Mormons allowed black ministers only in 1978 and women in 1984. Newsweek and Time would have cover stories looking at the tenets of the Mormon religion with special attention to baptism of dead ancestors, their lack of belief in the Trinity, their conviction that God has a physical body, and their condemnation of homosexuality.

Newmark was prescient. CNN managed to split-screen Romney so that even as he sought to re-assure voters, those watching were being treated to “red-meat –to-the-Evangelicals” (and fodder-for-the-secularists) informational LDS “church history” sidebars reading,

· Joseph Smith was killed by a mob in 1844
· Mormons believe the Book of Mormon is the word of God
· They accept the Bible as scripture but not as final authority
· Smith claimed God told him Mormons should have more than one wife
· For years Mormon Church did not admit blacks to the priesthood

I’m sure that, given time, someone at CNN would have dug up the fact that Mormons – in opposition to Christian scripture – believe that marriages exist in heaven and throughout eternity, and thrown that out there to upset Evangelical Christians. The press knows it need not examine the LDS church too closely until such time as Romney seals the nomination – but CNN’s display came off like a warning shot across a bow. Romney has not taken his religion off the table.