Correction: This article should have made clear that Cotton was interviewed for the story late Wednesday by an NWA Media representative. Cotton didn't grant requests for an interview earlier Wednesday with an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter.
Sen. Mark Pryor's campaign demanded an apology Wednesday from Republican challenger U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton for comments he made about Pryor's faith during an interview in Northwest Arkansas on Tuesday.
A reporter for KNWA-TV asked Cotton about this week's Supreme Court decision that the Hobby Lobby craft store chain does not have to pay for insurance coverage of contraception that goes against the owners' religious beliefs. Cotton said he supported the decision, then quickly aligned Pryor with President Barack Obama and questioned the depth of their spiritual commitment.
"Barack Obama and Mark Pryor think that faith is something that only happens at 11 o'clock on Sunday mornings," Cotton told the reporter from the Fayetteville station. "That's when we worship, but faith is something we live every single day. And the government shouldn't infringe upon the rights of religious liberty."
Reached by phone early Wednesday evening, Pryor, the four-time chairman of the National Prayer Breakfast, said there was "no place for those remarks in politics."
"I was very disappointed that Tom Cotton took his campaign to where he questioned my faith," he said. "My faith is very personal to me, and I've always been open about that faith. I've even been criticized for that faith. But, in a political campaign, to say someone is only a Christian one hour a week ... there's no place for that."
Pryor said he grew up with religion in his life but got serious about his faith in high school. That commitment remained strong, Pryor said, when he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in his early 30s.
"I wouldn't say it deepened my faith, but it was a milestone in my faith. It's really sobering to look at your own mortality when you're 33. My faith really helped me get through that," he said. "I knew ultimately that it was in God's hands and that gave me a sense of peace at that time."
His campaign staff said Pryor, who identifies as an evangelical, attends different churches -- sometimes accepting pastors' invitations. But they said he has attended services most often in the past few months at the First Assembly of God in North Little Rock. A pastor there did not return phone calls Wednesday.
Pryor, who regularly attended a weekly bipartisan Bible study on Capitol Hill, keeps several copies of the Bible in his office.
Jim Benfer, pastor of the First United Methodist Church in Dardanelle, said he sees Cotton about one Sunday a month -- sometimes more. Cotton, a newlywed, is often accompanied by his wife, Benfer said.
"His family has gone to this church for several generations," Benfer said. "We see his parents every week and we see him whenever he's in town."
On his desk in Washington, Cotton keeps a Bible that belonged to his grandfather. It's the book Cotton took to his swearing-in ceremony.
Cotton did not grant requests for an interview Wednesday. A campaign spokesman issued a statement acknowledging Pryor's faith but sticking by Cotton's previous comments.
"Senator Pryor is a man of faith and practices it with commendable openness, which I respect, but I wish he would respect Arkansans' right to practice our faith," the statement, attributed to Cotton, said.
"Instead, Senator Pryor and President Obama still defend Obamacare even after the Supreme Court said it violated freedom of religion. Senator Pryor supports taxpayer-funded abortion and late-term abortion and would force Christians to pay for abortions despite their deeply held religious beliefs. That's a real attack on faith."
At a campaign event in Fayetteville on Wednesday, Pryor called Cotton's response false and noted the lack of apology.
"I'm sorry that instead of apologizing for it, he's taken to making up things about my record instead," Pryor told a reporter.
"He says I've voted for federal funding of abortion and to allow late-term abortion. Neither of those is true. I've voted to ban late-term abortion."
Pryor's campaign pointed to almost a dozen votes in the Senate to ban public funds for abortion or to ban procedures like partial-birth abortions during his tenure, as well as to campaign statements made when he was running for Arkansas attorney general in 1998.
Late Wednesday, Cotton accused Pryor of refusing to take stands on current anti-abortion legislation and said the Democratic incumbent doesn't deserve an apology.
"The only apology that's owed is from Mark Pryor to the people of Arkansas for voting for Obamacare," Cotton said.
Rare tactic
Political experts in Arkansas said it was unusual for a candidate to question his opponent's spiritual commitment.
"Neighborliness, the Hogs, religion and patriotism; those are the four Arkansas values that come to mind immediately," said Art English, a political science professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
"We take our faith seriously in Arkansas, and when someone injects faith in political conversations, that does open up a whole new avenue of discussion," he said. "I'm surprised that Rep. Cotton would make that comment. It seems like kind of a desperate tactic. Even if the intent was to lump him in with the president, it's kind of an attack on somebody as a conventional Christian and saying they're only there on Sundays. You can't ever really know what someone's personal struggle with faith is."
Hal Bass, a political science professor at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, said he thought that, as a campaign tactic, questioning an opponent's faith was unwise.
"I think it's very very awkward to bring into question an opponent's faith ... and the potential for it to backfire is definitely there," Bass said. "For many Americans, religion and faith are considered to be a private affair or, more so, considered not open for attack in the public realm. Arkansas is in the Bible Belt, and I think there is an expectation that folks who serve in the public life have strong religious values, but there is a realm of privacy associated with them."
Ad proclaimed faith
This isn't the first time Pryor's religious beliefs have been on display or the first time they've been targeted by opponents.
Pryor ran an ad in December that showed him holding a Bible. "I'm not ashamed to say that I believe in God and I believe in his word," he said in the commercial.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee issued a statement shortly after the ad began airing, alleging that the commercial's claims were at odds with previous statements Pryor had made about the Bible.
Cotton's spokesman David Ray issued a statement in December saying the senatorial committee's comments were "bizarre and offensive" and "We should all agree that America is better off when all our public officials in both parties have the humility to seek guidance from God."
Doug Thompson of NWA Newspapers contributed to this report.
A section on 07/03/2014