State Department's advocate for international religious freedom becomes campaign issue

A conservative Catholic group is making an issue out of the almost 18 months it took President Obama to pick an ambassador for international religious freedom after his inauguration.

In a “Religious Freedom” scorecard unveiled Friday, The Catholic Association gives Obama an “F” on seven religious issues, including support for religious liberty around the world. Republican challenger Mitt Romney gets “A+”s across the board, notably for vowing to “stand up and protect religious freedom wherever it is threatened.”

The group's main focus is the healthcare law's contraception mandate, but the lengthy time it took the president to nominate the country's top advocate for religious rights across the world has long been a sore point for conservatives. Obama finally nominated Suzan Johnson Cook, the president of the Hampton Ministers Conference, in June 2010.

The position is a high-profile one, having been created by an act of Congress in 1998. The Catholic Association however doesn't mention that Cook's swearing in was delayed further by 11 months, until May 2011, because of obstruction by Republican Sen. Jim DeMint (S.C.).

The scorecard is expected to be sent to one million households across the country, in English and Spanish. The effort comes as a recent poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press showed Obama leading Romney 54 to 39 percent.

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