It seems to me Steve Chapman at Reason Online has a good point (as did Atrios and Mark Kleiman) about "Mitt Romney's strange double standards":

Romney said there should be no religious test for this office. "A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith," he said.

Rejected because of his faith, no. But rejected for his lack of faith? That's another question. Romney evinces a powerful aversion to skeptics. "We need to have a person of faith lead the country," he said in February, which sounds like a religious test to me.

Now one can surely argue that a person's beliefs on religious issues are relevant to our evaluation of the person's character — of his commitment to reason, or his likely adherence to a moral code, or whatever else. (Our commenters had some very interesting thoughts on some closely related issues here and here.) Such relevance is in my experience often overestimated, but there's nothing inherently unsound about such arguments. [Sentence initially inadvertently omitted:] Likewise, one can reasonable argue that on balance one's beliefs on theological issues are in practice far enough removed from one's likely behavior on secular matters -- and that their significance is so likely to be erroneously estimated by others who have different theological beliefs -- that it's better to just exclude them from political discussion.

But it seems odd to say that challenging Romney because of his Mormon faith — for instance, "How can you believe such odd-seeming factual assertions about reality and history?," or "Your religion barred blacks from full-fledged membership until 1978, when you were 30; what was your view at the time about the morality of this prohibition?" — is somehow categorically improper, but rejecting atheist or agnostic political leaders because of their lack of religious faith would be permissible.

I realize, by the way, that Romney's "We need to have a person of faith" line was an apparently off-the-cuff response to a hostile questioner. But I haven't heard of Romney expressly or implicitly disavowing it, despite the public attention the line had gotten. Nor have I heard of anything else that suggests that Romney does not in fact take this view.

Jim writes, on National Review Online's Campaign Spot blog:

[Heading:] Uncharitably Reading An Old Romney Comment Steve Chapman, as well as Eugene Volokh, think Romney is hypocritical on the issue of "religious tests" for office.

At issue:

Like John F. Kennedy, who said in 1960 that the presidency should not be "tarnished by arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from the members of any one religious group," Romney said there should be no religious test for this office. "A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith," he said.

Rejected because of his faith, no. But rejected for his lack of faith? That's another question. Romney evinces a powerful aversion to skeptics. "We need to have a person of faith lead the country," he said in February, which sounds like a religious test to me.

I disagree. We should have no Constitutional or legal requirement of religious faith for office. But the voters are certainly entitled to take a candidate's religious views, or lack thereof, into their decision-making process.

In fact, voters have every right to ask Romney a bunch of questions about what he believes about God; reporters have that right as well and have exercised that right to embarrassing lengths this cycle. A candidate has the choice to answer those questions, as well as the right to say, "that's private, and that's none of your business."

When Romney says, "we need to have a person of faith lead the country," I have a hard time reading this as anything other than an expression of personal preference, and/or his assessment of what the country needs in a leader right now. He's not calling for a religious test or legal requirement for the office; the audience that Romney addresses can either say, "yes, we agree," or say, "no, we don't need a person of faith, we need a person of competence/vision/whatever." (Not that faith contradicts any of those other qualities.)

I wonder, though, whether Jim disagrees with Romney more than he does with me. As my post suggested, it's certainly plausible to argue that voters should inquire into a candidate's beliefs about God. But Governor Romney seems to take a different view:

There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church's distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution. 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.

So it sounds to me like Romney is indeed saying that it's wrong (not illegal, but wrong) for voters and journalists to ask a candidate about his religious views, and to hold it against him that he hasn't adequately answered their questions.

Maybe Jim sees this just as Romney's exercising his "right to say, 'that's private, and that's none of your business.'" But then I don't quite see what Jim means by "voters have every right to ask Romney a bunch of questions about what he believes about God," unless he is simply making the (fairly obvious) legal point that voters are legally and constitutionally free to ask Romney anything they please.