Editor's note: This op-ed piece was previously published in USA Today. It is republished here with the permission from the authors.

Should Americans fear Mitt Romney because he is a Mormon? In spite of what some political pundits have recently argued, the answer is a resounding no.

Should Romney fear how some Americans will react to his religion? Unfortunately, recent polls say yes. But just like another Massachusetts politician who faced questions about his religion, namely John F. Kennedy, Romney can, and should, tackle uneasiness about his religion head-on — sooner rather than later.

Romney has not yet officially announced his plans to run for the Republican nomination, yet the darts have already begun to fly. In fact, some critics have argued that Romney should not be elected solely because of his membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS):

• Writing in Slate, columnist Jacob Weisberg says that if Romney truly believes in his religion, "I don't want him running the country."

• Damon Linker, in The New Republic, says voters should reject Romney on religious grounds. Echoing precisely the same concerns raised about Kennedy's Catholicism, Linker argues that a Mormon president would be controlled by his church's hierarchy. In his words, "would it not be accurate to say that under a President Romney, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would truly be in charge of the country?" Actually, no, it would not be accurate, any more than it was accurate to say that Kennedy would take orders from the Vatican. And neither would it be accurate to accuse the LDS church of pulling the strings of other prominent Mormon politicians, such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., the late Rep. Mo Udall, D-Ariz., and numerous others.

It is true that, like many religious groups, the LDS church occasionally makes policy pronouncements, as it did last June in support of a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. However, this kind of political activity has not served to constrain Mormon elected officials. Reid, at the time the Senate minority leader, led the opposition to the amendment. In response to a reporter's question about his open opposition to the LDS church's public position, his press secretary Sharyn Stein said that the church had asked members to express their opinions on the issue, so her boss was doing so "loudly and repeatedly on the Senate floor."

A President Romney would have the same autonomy to speak and act independently of his church.

Kennedy's approach

Romney's challenge, however, is to make this clear to the American public. It is here that the parallel to Catholicism is instructive.