Mitt Romney's speech last week imploring voters not to judge his ability to be president by his religion was, by most accounts, eloquently stated and well-received.

It was also well-timed.

Because if you're looking for the right time of year in which to deliver a speech about religious liberty and tolerance of other faiths, you'd be hard pressed to find a more ecumenical-minded, spiritually-rich month than December in which to do so.

This month's calendar is filled with important religious days for followers of many different faiths.

In South Dakota, of course, the vast majority of us are Christians of one stripe or another, so Christmas Eve and Christmas Day top the list of religious holidays here.

Christians of all different denominations, including Romney, will celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Christmas may not be the theological centerpiece of the Christian faith, but it is, far and away, the biggest commercialization of it. Even the non-religious and the atheists among us have made a religion of sorts of a secularized Christmas.

But when it comes to organized religion, December isn't limited to Christmas.

For our Jewish friends and neighbors, Hanukkah, an eight-day festival of light, is just ending. A week from now, Muslims begin their Hajj, a spiritual journey that culminates on Dec. 30 with one of Islam's biggest holy days, Eid Al-Adha. On Dec. 22, Wiccans and other nature-worshippers will mark the Winter Solstice. Buddhists celebrated Bodhi Day on Dec. 8, to mark the time when Siddhartha achieved enlightenment, became the Buddha and formulated the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism. Kwanzaa, an African-American celebration of family and values, begins Dec. 26, the day after Christmas.

All these other non-Christian spiritual traditions combined make up a very small slice of the faith demographics pie in South Dakota. And that is a big reason why we, and so many other Americans, applauded Romney's speech on religious liberty.

While Americans may differ widely in what they believe, or don't believe, about God, we should be united in our belief in the constitution and the protections it offers people of all religions, or none.

That makes December a great month to build ecumenical bridges between people, and between candidates and voters, of many different faiths.