Someone who refuses to consider voting for a woman as president is rightly deemed a sexist. Someone who would never vote for a black person is a racist. But are you a religious bigot if you would not cast a ballot for a believing Mormon?

The issue arises with the bid by Mitt Romney, governor of Massachusetts, for the Republican nomination in 2008. Mr Romney would not be the first member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to run for the highest office in the US. He follows Utah Senator Orrin Hatch (2000), Utah Senator Mo Udall (1976), his father George Romney (1968) and, not least of all, Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, who ran in 1844 on a platform of "theodemocracy", abolition of slavery and cutting congressional pay. Smith did not do much better than Mr Hatch and had to settle for the Mormon-elected post of King of the Kingdom of Heaven.