Even though the South Carolina Republican Party has condemned gubernatorial hopeful Jake Knotts for calling GOP front-runner Nikki Haley a "raghead" (Haley practiced the Sikh faith before converting to Christianity), it would be a mistake to say Republican politics in South Carolina represent a bastion of tolerance. Case in point: before Knotts roiled the race with his epithet (which he also applied to President Obama), Haley's creed was already being scrutinized in what can only be described as a religious test. Politico's Ben Smith:
The latest front opened on the embattled frontrunner in the South Carolina Governor's race concerns her religion, as opponents are, her spokesman said, pushing questions about how recently she fully converted from the Sikh religion of her birth to Christianity.
The Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody posted a story today noting, accurately, that her public persona and campaign website had taken a progressively "more Christian" tone, and raising some of those questions.
But in the nasty game of South Carolina politics, in which Haley has already been accused twice publicly of infidelity, the religion story has a clear political charge. Brody told me in an email that his story was prompted by "a tip from an anonymous source," and Tim Pearson, Haley's spokesman, said the story was "being shopped" and that Brody wasn't the only reporter to call him about it.
In his piece, Brody claimed he wasn't questioning Haley's faith.
The Brody File is NOT questioning her Christian beliefs at all but rather how the emphasis of her religious language seems to have evolved throughout her political career.
Of course, whenever someone says they aren't questioning someone's faith, you can damn well be sure that they are, and Brody doesn't fail in his effort to portray Haley as a heretic. (Emphasis in the original.)
The Brody File has uncovered documents and details that show an emphasis on her Sikh faith and traditions in 2004 when she was running for the State Legislature (even though she became a Christian 7 years earlier). Now that she’s running for Governor of the state, mentions of her Sikh faith are virtually non-existent. A legitimate question must be asked: After seeing how the faith issue hurt Mitt Romney and damaged Barack Obama to some extent as well, is Haley making a political decision by playing up her Christian faith (just like Obama did) and LOSING the Sikh emphasis?
Haley was born in South Carolina as “Nikki Randhawa, the daughter of Indian Punjabi immigrants and was raised with the Sikh faith. (Read more about Sikhism here) Her conversion story begins in 1997. (You can listen to her discuss that here.
In 2004, (seven years after becoming a Christian) she and her family were still attending Sikh Temples as well as their Methodist Church. In 2004, she was running for the State Legislature and she was quoted back then as saying, “I was born and raised with the Sikh faith, my husband and I were married in the Methodist Church, our children have been baptized in the Methodist Church, and currently we attend both.”
Her 2004 campaign played up her Sikh upbringing and faith saying that “Nikki was proudly raised with her Indian traditions” No mention that she’s a Christian.
South Carolina's unemployment rate is at nearly 12%, and this is what Republicans are arguing about? With examples like this, it's no wonder that Americans still can't stand the GOP.