I hadn’t planned on doing a follow-up post on Mitt Romney’s “Faith In America” speech of last Thursday, but Peggy Noonan’s gushing endorsement of the speech in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal got under my skin like a tick.

Ms. Noonan says that Romney’s staff told her that a first draft of the speech was ready last March. If so, it was ready directly after a campaign appearance on February 17, in which Romney declared that “We need to have a person of faith lead the country.”

In his speech on Thursday, it will be remembered, Romney said this: "I do not define my candidacy by my religion. A person should not be elected because of his faith, nor should he be rejected because of his faith.”

Which is it, Mr. Romney?

Similarly, in New Hampshire, just a couple of days before his speech in College Station, Romney declined to answer an interviewer’s question on how Mormon teachings differed from those of other Christian denominations. He said, “I’m not running for pastor-in-chief … I’m not a spokesman for my church.”

But he said in his speech on Thursday, "There is one fundamental question about which I often am asked. What do I believe about Jesus Christ? I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind.”

In other words, a man who, as a young Mormon missionary in Europe could explain the basic teachings of his church in French, is unable or unwilling to do so in plain English as a candidate for president. He is, however, willing to answer the question of what he believes about Jesus Christ if, by so doing, he can imply that Mormon beliefs are more similar to those of orthodox Christianity than they actually are.

You can’t have it both ways, Mr. Romney. And that goes as well for what you said about how you watched your father march with Martin Luther King.

If you want to score political points by talking about your father’s solidarity with the civil rights movement, then you better be prepared to explain why the Mormon church excluded blacks from its priesthood until 1978.

When George Romney was marching with Martin Luther King, he was probably the most prominent and visible Mormon in America. Did he ever protest, publicly or privately, the Mormon church’s discrimination against blacks?

What about Mitt Romney himself? He was a Mormon missionary at the height of the civil rights movement in the late 1960s. Is there any evidence that he questioned his church’s dogma on this issue at the time?

I am not implying that the Mormon church is more guilty of racism than any other religion. I’m just saying Mr. Romney can’t point to the image of his father marching shoulder-to-shoulder with Dr. King and then drop the subject before embarrassing questions start cropping up.

Mr. Romney’s problem is not his faith, but his falsity. He’ll talk about his faith in Jesus Christ as “the Son of God and the Savior of mankind” if that will win him votes among evangelical Christians, but he’ll duck any serious discussion of his Mormon beliefs for fear of offending those same people.

His speech of last week was too clever by half. It’s not going to save his candidacy.