For the 48 percent who were disappointed with the presidential election results, you might want to skip this column. You see, I didn’t vote for Mitt, but I had a good reason:

His underwear.

I’m serious. One night earlier this year I watched as the evening news dissected the official one-piece Mormon undergarment that Mitt dons each day and I began to question whether we should elect a man president who is so completely – how to say it – wrapped up in his religion.

I remember when Jack Kennedy wanted to be the country’s first Catholic president and a lot of folks were concerned that the Pope would be pulling levers in the White House. Kennedy actually made a campaign promise that Vatican City would hold no sway over Washington, and it occurred to me that Mitt Romney might not have been able to say the same of Salt Lake City.

Certainly he’s a much better Mormon than Jack was a Catholic. Back then our next-door neighbor had a friend who owned a Pittsburgh hotel that our lovable president used for an occasional dalliance. I mean, who didn’t have a Kennedy story? As far as I know, Catholicism has no restrictive stance on lay underwear other than a strong preference that you wear some. I have no idea what President Kennedy wore. My guess it was something easy to get out of.

Anyway, some time before Nov. 6 I became convinced that a man who allows his church to pick out his skivvies is a man who’s going to make lots of political decisions based on that church’s wishes. Maybe the big decisions.

So Mitt lost my vote.

What ever happened to separation of church and state anyway? It’s a wonderfully sensible idea, convincingly presented in our First Amendment, and for my money the finest contribution American democracy has made to the history of governance.

Nothing in human affairs has proven more combustible than the mixture of political power and religious self-righteousness, nevertheless, recent candidates floated freely from policy to prayer and back again.

Michelle Bachman, for instance, thinks homosexuality can be cured through prayer. Rick Perry thinks the same about drought. Rick Santorum wants to recast the moral stance of the entire country into something familiar to the 13th Century. Herman Cain claims God sees him as a modern-day Moses. And who will soon forget those wacky would-be senators, would-be gynecologists Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock? Voters apparently decided they were, at a minimum, raping the language.

We need moral leaders, not messiahs. Is the distinction important? You bet your communion card collection it is. It determines what you might consider a “just war” and just how likely you are to start one. It influences whether you might issue an executive order that establishes “faith offices” as a way to use public funds to champion your favorite religion. It might prompt a re-examination of long-settled issues like abortion, or women’s rights in general. Sadly, for many historians it explains George W. Bush’s otherwise incomprehensible foray into Iraq.

I’m not counting on God to solve our problems because I don’t think He created them. Nor do I agree with Senator Mark Rubio who introduced Mitt in Tampa with the words, “faith in our Creator is the most American value of them all.” Really? Not according to our founding fathers who outlawed religious tests to hold public office.

The problem with the Mormons is they think they’re special. So do Catholics, Jews, fundamentalist Christians, lots of regular Christians, Muslims, and for that matter the surviving members of David Koresh’s Branch Davidians. You don’t need a degree from the Harvard Divinity School to realize not everyone can be right about this. As Mark Twain observed, “The easy confidence with which I know another man’s religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.”

So I’m glad Bishop Romney didn’t make it. If you want to live in a theocracy, there are several to pick from in Arabia. Meanwhile, if you need a religious touchstone to convince yourself that keeping God out of government is an idea for the ages, consider the words of Jesus, himself, as recorded by apostle Mark: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Couldn’t have separated it better myself.

Rick Roberts (reroberts46@yahoo.com) is a veteran of Boston’s advertising community and the US Army. He lives in Windham. He is author of two books: I Was Much Happier When Everything I Owned Was In The Back Seat Of My Volkswagen, and the novel, Digital Darling. Both are available at bookstores, Amazon.com, or visit: BabyBoomerPress.com.