Utah's Mike Lee says his faith informs his politics

Sen. Mike Lee said his LDS faith affects how he serves in public office, but that doesn't mean fellow Mormons will necessarily agree with his brand of conservative politics or that he considers the faith of a person when deciding whom to support.

The Utah senator talked about his religion in an interview with Reason TV, a libertarian news source.

During a wide-ranging interview, Reason's Nick Gillespie asked Lee: "Does your faith inform your politics? Should voters care about a politician or a leader's faith?"

Lee responded: "First of all, my faith informs everything I do. It certainly informs how I do my job, how I treat my family and how I interact with others so yes it informs everything I do."

Lee continued: "As to the second part of your question, there are many who share my faith, who don't share my view of government. I'm certainly not willing to assume as a voter that simply because someone else shares my faith that they're going to get my vote. As a voter what I look for is whether somebody shares my view of government and its proper role. That person may or may not share my faith; that person may or may not have any faith. I'm hiring them not to be my minister. I'm hiring them to represent me in government. I want to know what they think the proper role of government is. If they're running for federal office I want to know what they think the proper role of the federal government is, how they read the constitution, whether they see this as some kind of open-ended conversation-starter or whether they view it as actually meaningfully restricting the power of the federal government."

— Matt Canham