Can Ohio Tolerate Ramaswamy's Religious Toleration?
In November, we will learn whether Buckeye Republicans have been sufficiently persuaded by a more tolerant vision of the fusion of faith and freedom.
The first time I saw Vivek Ramaswamy in person was at a January 2026 meet-and-greet with Republican movers and shakers in southwest Ohio. It was held at the home of one of them—a mini-mansion in the city of Mason. The event was organized as an open forum where attendees could talk about their biggest political concerns and ask Ramaswamy, the Republican candidate for governor of Ohio, about his policy ideas.
The meeting was fairly informal. Finger foods were spread out over a long table in the corner while some sat on couches or chairs and others crowded around the would-be governor. Security was provided by middle-aged men in leather vests bearing the insignia of their group, Bikers for Trump. Each participant was encouraged to introduce themselves and mention an issue they cared deeply about.
Early introductions focused on property taxes and school choice, and Ramaswamy responded to each with directness and warmth. A question about the "woke left" gave him an opportunity to mention his books about identity politics and put forward his solution to such identity-based divisions: stop talking about race and sexuality so much and stand on our shared values as Americans. This garnered some applause and nods of agreement. But after seemingly dispensing with identity politics, it came back for another round.
The warm and affable tone that had marked the early part of the proceedings shifted when one man charged, "Your HB1 [sic] visa is scaring a lot of people"—a reference to Ramaswamy's stance on immigration, which would lower the number of new arrivals while easing the path for skilled workers, particularly in tech. This sparked a flood of comments and turned the event into a free-for-all. One attendee complained that "too much housing is going to immigrants" who will always vote Democrat over Republican "because they want to bring their family over." Another participant pleaded for "limiting preferential treatment for foreigners over real Americans" and spoke gravely of "rapid demographic change."
A female attendee took strong exception to a New York Times op-ed Ramaswamy had penned about Groypers. In it, he noted that, "There are two competing visions now emerging on the American right, and they are incompatible. One vision of American identity is based on lineage, blood and soil: Inherited attributes matter most. The purest form of an American is a so-called heritage American — one whose ancestry traces back to the founding of the United States or earlier….The alternative (and, in my view, correct) vision of American identity is based on ideals."
In short, Ramaswamy had rejected the claim that "heritage Americans" were more American than recent immigrants, essentially calling their pride of lineage a form of "blood and soil" racism. The female attendee charged that Ramaswamy was "losing heritage Americans" with his ideals-based view of American identity. Ramaswamy pushed back, clearly but perhaps a bit timidly, arguing that when he had rejected "woke" identity politics on the left, that rejection applied just as much to identitarianism on the right. People were now fidgeting and shaking their heads. Ramaswamy, despite his eloquence, had lost the room.
What had become apparent from this interaction was that many Republicans in southwest Ohio—who had spent 10 years accommodating their deeply held religious beliefs to unswerving support for a president who is a big-government populist and prolific philanderer with little interest in Jesus Christ—were now struggling to to bring themselves to vote for a more traditional conservative because he was a Hindu, the son of Indian immigrants, and a moderate among immigration hawks.
They could see their way to welcoming a small number of nonwhite immigrants so long as the United States could remain a normatively white and Christian country. They could maybe even vote for an Indian for governor. But they had to know that he was on their side. Not on their side when it comes to balanced budgets, limited government, or decreased spending, but on the issue they cared about most: their identity.
Ramaswamy, by most measures a fairly traditional conservative and even a Trump sycophant when necessary, had unfortunately launched a campaign within a party that sees him with suspicion because he is a Hindu from an Indian immigrant family and (perhaps, and more subtly), because he is not white. His New York Times op-ed evinced that he understood this reality; nevertheless, his task was to win them over.
The second time I saw Vivek Ramaswamy in person was on August 17, 2026, at the Ohio Faith & Freedom Forum, an event spearheaded by Warren County Republican Party leader Pete Mengel (incidentally, my second cousin, with whom I've had a working relationship unrelated to his political activism). I expected the event to go about as well as the one I had attended in January, and all the signs pointed in that direction.
The emcee was Ruth Edmonds, a black conservative woman who was the Christian Engagement Ambassador for the Center for Christian Virtue—an Ohio-based lobbying group affiliated with Focus on the Family whose previous efforts included banning pornography from video stores and hotel rooms, as well as a successful 2004 campaign to make gay marriage unconstitutional in Ohio.
The event was held at The Altar, a church in Vice President J. D. Vance's old stomping ground of Middletown, Ohio, pastored by Lawrence Bishop II. Bishop's parents had founded Solid Rock Church in Monroe, Ohio. Solid Rock was famous for its enormous "Touchdown Jesus" statue before what insurance companies would call an act of God resulted in the statue being struck by lightning and burning to the ground. While still pastor at Solid Rock, Bishop II drew attention and raised eyebrows for turning a Wednesday night service into a rodeo. A conflict with church leadership allegedly led to Bishop leaving Solid Rock and starting The Altar. At the time, the bull-riding cowboy pastor seemingly sniped at Solid Rock's current leadership with public comments that some churches are more concerned with "Christians entertaining Christians" than serving their communities.
When I arrived at Bishop's new church—a remodeled movie theater—I noticed the Bikers for Trump chatting in the lobby. I also saw a number of cowboy hats, the occasional suit and tie, one mohawk, and a T-shirt that read, "Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president."
The forum was held in a space that had remained largely unchanged since its movie theater days. I sat in my theater chair, getting a good look at the audience while upbeat, generic Christian rock played on the speakers.
Eventually, Edmonds took the stage. She executed her legal duty of reminding the audience that this event—which had as its main course a panel discussion with Ramaswamy on a stage adorned with his campaign signs—was not intended as an endorsement. It was instead meant to "give Christian leaders a seat at the table and ask meaningful questions…and participate in civic life without compromising our faith."
Bishop must have missed that memo. When he stood up to give the prayer of invocation wearing a prominent white cowboy hat, he began with a joke. He claimed that he'd already been getting a lot of flak from "the media" for hosting the event and had been asked if he would be as willing to invite Democratic candidate Amy Acton to a similar forum at his church. His response: "Well, you wouldn't ask a Muslim church to host a pork festival, would you?" This elicited some claps and laughter from the audience, but not as much as his follow-up: "By the way, we don't have enough restrooms; we only have two genders." Mengel later reiterated to me that despite Bishop's comments, the Ohio Faith & Freedom Forum was not a political rally for Ramaswamy.
The stars were aligning for this meeting to be as chaotic as the one I had attended in January. However, it quickly became apparent that the organizers had learned their lesson. Rather than exposing Ramaswamy to surprise questions from the audience, they invited a panel of local religious leaders to the stage. Oddly, most questions had been written ahead of time and were asked by Edmonds, leaving the 13-member panel to ask Ramaswamy just two. I wondered whether this was a planning snafu or a bit of visual theater—local faith leaders from a number of denominations all sitting proudly with Ramaswamy despite their differences in religious conviction.
In a follow-up text exchange with Mengel, I learned that the ministers had met with Ramaswamy privately before taking the stage and that the questions had come from those ministers. Mengel assured me that no topic was off-limits, and that Ramaswamy's team had accepted those conditions.
However, before the panel, there were two presentations. Both seemed carefully crafted to promote the narrative the forum hoped to spread among Ohio Republicans. One was by local author Mark Burrell and another by Rep. Warren Davidson (R–Ohio). Both spoke on the familiar conservative theme of the Christian principles of the Founding Fathers, but with a twist appropriate to the occasion. Rather than needing to be united on every point of theology, the Founders could come together for freedom despite their denominational differences. Yes, "biblical citizenship…is part of discipleship," as Burrell argued, but American principles are actually built on God's natural law rather than the supernatural revelation of Scripture, which means even non-Christians have access to it. Thus, one doesn't have to be a Christian to be a good American, but one does have to affirm the vision of the Founders. Rather than focusing on theological purity tests, then, we should support religious liberty. In this way, we imitate Jesus, who, despite being Lord over all, did not impose his messiahship on the world through force.
Two things were clear from Burrell and Davidson's speeches: This was not the fusionism of faith and freedom that I heard growing up in southwest Ohio during the George W. Bush years. Instead, it was a more libertarian view of Christian political virtue—one that you'd hear from the Acton Institute rather than the Center for Christian Virtue. This was clearly a pre-apologia meant to sweep away the concerns that Christian nationalist-leaning attendees may have brought with them.
Mengel seemed to confirm that the Faith and Freedom Forum, though "not intended or designed to be a political event," had conveyed that "Christians across centuries have taught that God can use rulers who do not personally know or worship Him to accomplish His purposes." He also added that "Christians may therefore judge a ruler by whether he pursues justice, restrains evil, protects innocent life, preserves religious liberty, maintains order, and allows families and churches to flourish."
Ramaswamy understood this framing, and he did his best to reinforce it. During the panel, he noted that his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton, is Jewish, making this "the first time that the State of Ohio has two candidates, neither of whom is Christian, on the ballot." Thus, the choice facing Ohioans is not about the candidates' religion, but "who is more likely and more capable of standing for the actual values that the Christian conservative voters [share] in common with me."
The audience appeared largely accepting of this argument. However, Ramaswamy's big applause moment came when he was asked if he would "stand against…Sharia law being made the law code." He answered succinctly, "Yes, is the answer to that question," garnering cheers and claps. He went on to expand on his answer, claiming that all people (presumably even Muslims) should be able to practice their religion without government interference. However, he argued, this is different from having a private marriage or financial contract built on Sharia law principles enforced by government courts.
The message conveyed seemed to be this: Yes, Ramaswamy may be a practitioner of an Eastern religion, but not that Eastern religion. He may stand for religious tolerance, but not too much religious tolerance. Indeed, he may not even be a Christian conservative, but he'll stand up for their values—whatever those might be.
In November, we will learn whether Ohio Republicans have been sufficiently persuaded by a more tolerant vision of the fusion of faith and freedom. Or, on the contrary, whether they believe that Ramaswamy's identity as a Hindu and the son of Indian immigrants is as incompatible with their right-wing values as a pork festival at a Muslim church.