Mormons and The Media: Warren Jeffs vs. Mitt Romney

This is a tale of two Mormons.

One is a criminal creep, and the other is the richest 2008 Republican presidential prospect, worth $200 million or more. Probably half a billion given the anemic requirements on reporting candidate wealth.

We didn't examine the fountain of George W. Bush's wisdom nearly enough in 2000, and we've paid dearly for his half-baked biblical reading of the world. We preferred having a beer with him at a backyard barbecue instead of Gore, remember?

That was the extent of our collective analytical reach, sadly, and the pros hired to do Bush's slick TV ads sold him to fit that meme.

Enough inanity, already. Things have changed horribly after eight years. It's a must that we look critically at those who agree with Bush's actions and seek to assume his posture.

No offense is meant by broaching religion, but it matters, obviously, and can't be ignored. We'll start with press coverage of the creep.

Warren Jeffs has just been convicted of being an accomplice to rape. It's about time.

As the modern leader and Prophet of the largest offshoot Mormon polygamist sect in America (the very similarly named "Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints," founded in the 1930s), he was finally charged -- after running from the law for years -- with forcing a 14 year old girl to marry one of his adult male followers against her will.

He's done it before, and worse. This was the best prosecutors could do since witnesses are rarely forthcoming in cults like this.

Unfortunately, the news has focused exclusively on underage polygamy. The media has devoted no effort to exploring Jeffs' history of preaching about racial separatism, or how his views on race were a formal part of "mainstream" Mormon orthodoxy until not long ago.

Sex sells, and thus the only thing CNN hypes, the only thing the general public knows about anything Mormon-related, is the salacious stuff. As with any religion, there is so much more.

For example, Mormons believe that God Almighty was once a flesh and blood mortal like us. Really, they do. And that Christ will reappear on earth in both Jerusalem and Missouri. Yes, Missouri, home of the Mizzou Tigers! But that's for a different blog entry....

In dusty west Texas, outside the small town of Eldorado, the followers of Jeffs (estimated at 10,000) have built a large compound on 2,000 guarded acres purchased a few years ago. Think Waco's David Koresh and the Branch Davidians on steroids.

Unlike the town of Colorado City, Arizona, which Jeffs' group (and other polygamists) founded and have controlled for literally a hundred years, the Eldorado outpost hasn't had generations to flood the gene pool with elected officials, judges, police and media, not to mention the public schools. Blessedly, the local newspaper in Texas, The Eldorado Success, has the independence to post audio clips of his racist rants.

According to Jeffs:

The Negro race, which he calls the "seed of Cain," survived the flood of Noah because Noah's son Ham was married to "a wife of that seed" which he identified as being black. Jeffs claims it was necessary for the black race to be preserved "because it was necessary that the Devil should have a representation upon the Earth as well as God."

Jeffs also teaches us about rock and roll music. He says the Beatles were nothing until they learned at the feet of an unnamed homosexual black man who was a drug user, and then they became famous. Rock and roll music, he says, will

"rot the soul and lead the person to immorality, to corruption, to forget their prayers, to forget God. Thus the whole world has partaken of the spirit of the Negro race."

These sermons about race are ultimately more invidious than polygamy because they go largely unexamined. As constitutionally protected free speech, his words aren't illegal. Nor should they be, but his thousands of followers believe what he says. It's the Kool-Aid that gets guzzled, and such attitudes can spread like kudzu.

Since Jeffs' group is a Mormon offshoot, and since the definition of offshoot is "outgrowth: a natural consequence of development," it isn't unreasonable to wonder how deep-rooted his frightfully racist views are within the broader American Mormon movement.

The main "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" officially abandoned polygamy in 1890 (to gain statehood for Utah), taking additional decades to fully disown large and powerful polyamist sects in its midst.

Yet while the Mother Church ultimately moved past multiple marriage, she took much longer to abandon racial separatism, despite missionary work in Africa since the 19th Century and, more recently, Mexico.

The faith claims only 5.5 million U.S. adherents, few of them African-American. At the least, this explains the dearth of decent jazz clubs in Salt Lake City.

Things may be slowly changing, but church history puts the problem in sharp relief.

Original Mormon doctrine glorified whites (known as Nephites) at the expense of those who were not white (Lamanites). The latter group included Africans, Asians with dark skin, Latinos, etc. Certain categories of Lamanites, like Native American Indians, were capable of becoming Nephites by sufficiently embracing Mormon culture.

This screwy stuff was originally detailed in writings by Joseph Smith, such as "The Book of Mormon." Smith, of course, invented the faith out of whole cloth in the 1820's while on the lam. He settled in Missouri, which explains the Jesus-returning-to-Missouri-and-Jerusalem-simultaneously thing. After his death, the members began a move out West in 1847. Smith's successor, Brigham Young, then instituted severe racial restrictions that remained in place for the next 130 years.

Indeed, African-American men were barred from being ordained into the church's all-male lay priesthood until 1978, when a "revelation" from God to the Mormon president finally ended that policy.

None of this is ad hominem religion-bashing; it's merely the historic record, the gospel truth. Besides, most religions have wacky ideas that are accepted by the flock. That's why we call it "faith." Hopefully they see the light over time regarding their worst tendencies, and the Mormon church no doubt has honorable people lining its pews. All religions do.

But choosing a president (or a foreign policy) isn't about magical thinking, it's about finding someone to wisely represent -- in the real world -- 300 million citizens of varying faiths or no faith, and the past is often prologue.

As the Boston Globe reported in June of 2007, Mormon leadership secured handsome White House hopeful Willard Mitt Romney a deferment from the military draft as a "minister of religion" in the 1960's to conduct "missionary work" in France, which lasted two and a half years.

This is how the vigorous Iraq War supporter Romney avoided Vietnam, and all five of his strapping sons later chose the same spiritual path in lieu of military service.

Missionary work, by definition, means attempting to recruit others into the faith. Just what were those proselytizing "talking points" for the non-converted, and how passionately did Mitt believe the church doctrine he preached while toiling in the wine vineyards?

It should be noted that Romney isn't comparable to some "drive-by" Episcopalian who attends services twice a year with the wife and kids. He served as bishop, or lay pastor, of his church in Belmont, Mass. for three years, and then served nine years as "stake" president, overseeing a dozen Boston-area parishes, according to The Christian Science Monitor. He's sincerely devout, and has been his entire life.

Let's be clear: Romney's church outlawed polygamy over a century ago, the federal government before that. I couldn't care less what consenting adults do in their personal lives, and I've never heard Mitt address his religion's racist past. Still, Warren Jeffs and his happy gaggle don't exist in a vacuum and weren't created in a Petri dish.

It seems to me a study of Mormon teachings and philosophy is a worthwhile endeavor. This applies to other religions, too, especially as we measure the 2008 presidential field.

After all, most conservative politicians now wear religion on their sleeve as part of the campaign platform. It casts a pall on everything from the teaching of evolutionary biology to stem cell research to thoughts on biblical Armageddon in the Middle East.

Their theological outlook can truly impact each of us.

Think of how we've changed in less than five short decades: when JFK ran for president in 1960, protestant America's fear of Europeans forced him to famously convince the voters that he wouldn't be beholden to the Pope in Rome on matters of public policy.

Today, on the other hand, Republican candidates can't be beholden enough to their faith. That's a sea change (Rudy Giuliani's moral relativism notwithstanding).

It's also a change of their own choosing, because Americans strongly disagreed with Republican behavior in the Terri Schiavo affair. These wannabes are running for president, not pastor.

The Constitution has no religious litmus test for public office, thank God. This doesn't mean, however, that the voting public shouldn't consider how a politician's deeply ingrained fealty to a particular faith might impact on-the-job decisions.

It's called doing "due diligence," and it's a responsibility that comes with living in a democracy.

The religious beliefs of our would-be elected leaders strike me as a fair area of inquiry, open to exploration, free of fearmongering. Another mistake is simply unaffordable.

Comments

[Jacksonfromtejas]

Coltakashi accuses me of employing "guilt by association and misrepresentation."

I never suggest that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is somehow a polygamy-loving racist, but let's take them in order:

Polygamy was a central tenet of the Mormon Church from the time Joseph Smith founded the religion in the 1820's until it was officially outlawed by the church in 1890. The U.S. government had outlawed it previously, and Utah wouldn't have become a state unless the Church followed suit, so it did. Untold thousands of followers did not give up the practice, but as I made clear in the piece, I am not so concerned about multiple marriage, and I bemoaned the media for pushing the sex angle over the long history of racism.

And as for that racism, the Church would not allow African-Americans to hold positions of authority until a "revelation" by their leader in 1978. This history of doctrinal discrimination against blacks is far too wacky and contemporary for my taste (1978 is very contemporary), and I hardly think that church missionaries taking food and clothing abroad and converting thousands or millions of people of color to the faith somehow dismisses or diminishes the institutional racism of the Mother Church back home. I repeat: 1978.

Mitt Romney chose Mormon missionary work in lieu of serving in the military during Vietnam. Today he supports the war in Iraq. Any citizen should consider the full measure of the man or woman when deciding for whom to vote. I'm not running for public office, so my military service - or lack thereof - counts for nothing.

I also wrote that conservative candidates wear their religion on their sleeve and that their religious views color their thinking on issues that affect us all whether we share their particular faith or not (evolutionary biology, stem cell research, biblical Armageddon, etc.). Voters should consider the views of those who would lead us, and where they get those views. It's called common sense, doing due diligence. We don't need another White House occupant like the current one.

[coltakashi]

During the Vietnam War era, it finally occurred to Selective Service that for every Mormon who went on a mission, another one was coming back and could be drafted. Then the draft lottery was instituted in 1969. Romney's number was over 300, so he was not drafted, and went on with life, which was the expectation for all those with high numbers. Mine was 16, which meant that as soon as I returned from two years as a missionary in Japan, I was given a draft physical, and signed up for Air Force ROTC. In 1973 I began 20 years of service, retiring as a Lt. Colonel.

The AFROTC unit at Brigham Young University is one of the largest programs in the country, and in my experience, Mormons are overrepresented in the Air Force. As for Romney's sons, there was no draft when they became adults, so military service was simply one option for them. If it makes you feel better, my older son joined the Army as a combat nurse and my son-in-law served 6 years in the Air Force. The Utah National Guard has a large cadre of former Mormon missionaries who are the core linguists for the Army Intelligence Corps, and they are currently serving worldwide. One of my law school classmates is the commanding general. There is an Air National Guard unit that flies aerial refueling KC-135s out of Salt Lake to refuel planes en route to and from Iraq and Afghanistan, an Army National Guard helicopter unit that has seen active duty in Iraq, and an Air Force Reserve F-16 wing that has done multiple tours in the Middle East ever since the 1991 Gulf War, enforcing the No Fly Zone over Iraq. The most senior leaders of the LDS Church have served in the Army, Navy and Air Force, as a civilian nuclear engineer for the Navy, and a German national who was in the West German Air Force. Mormons have served in the US military since the Mexican War in 1847.

What was the military service of Mr. Williams?

[coltakashi]

This essay is a blatant exercise in guilt by association and misrepresentation.

(1) Warren Jeffs has never been a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He and his church are opponents of the "Mormon" Church, rejecting Mormon church leaders and doctrines, and the real Mormons are no more responsible for his actions than Pope Benedict XVI is responsible for the actions of Jim Bakker. (2) 5.5 million Mormons constitute the 4th largest church in the United States. If Democrats want to secure Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon and Washington electoral votes, they'd better get off the idea that they can do it while telling insulting lies about Mormons.

(3) The majority of the 13 million Mormons worldwide live outside the US, including in nations like Kenya, South Africa, Ghana and Nigeria. Tens of thousands have joined the LDS Church in Africa in the last 30 years. If you live in New York, you could wander down and see the new five story Mormon church in Harlem. There have been black Mormons since the beginning of the Church in the 1830s, including families in the congregation I grew up in in Salt Lake City in the 1950s, in the congregation I attended in Maryland in 1978, and an Army paratrooper I helped baptize in 1974 in Colorado Springs, who told me that he had visited many churches in the city, but the Mormons were the only ones who really welcomed him. Mormon missionaries have been teaching and baptizing American Indians since the 1830s, polynesians since the 1840s (a third of Tonga are Mormons), and Japanese since 1901. Calling Mormons racist is irrational, since Mormons include millions of people of all races, including a million Mexicans and nearly that many Brazilians. Try telling a Brazilian Mormon of mixed Japanese, black, and Portueguese heritage that he is a racist.

[realitytrumpsbull]

I think if you finally want to crush, melt, and recycle racism for all time, then you need to
focus on emphasizing commonalities. To wit:
A frequent reference you'll read talks about
'hyphenated-americans', people who have some
special social/ethnic status of some kind,
and an entitlement mentality to match.

The Founders put it simply: "All men are created
equal", inalienable rights, so forth, and so on.
That's been updated to where women share the
same rights as men in the eyes of the law,
and Lincoln freed the slaves a long, long time
ago. But, in the interim, someone discovered
that there's a ready-made sob story to be
carried forward, and willing ears to bend,
and federal monies to be had, hence the
existence of the subject today.

Want equal opportunity? Rewrite those job
applications with all the fancy little
check boxes. Make it so that it has room
for your name, gender, address, and other
information, but past that, leave the rest
of the form for your prior work history, in
the old spirit of 'by their works ye shall
know them', one of the few pearls of wisdom
you can lift out of that Bible-thing.
Prejudice, or pre-judgement, is the practice
of making assumptions on future performance
of an individual based on expecations drawn
on assumptions related to a person's ethnic
background, or socio-economic status, religion,
or gender. So, if you wash most of that crap out
of a job app, you're helping employers to be less biased. But, even if you take care of the
ethnic stuff, judgement will still be passed based on age etc.

No matter what you do, though, there's people
out there that'll be trying to angle for a free
ride. That's the magic of making all your
employees 'at-will', if they screw up, you can
can em on the spot, no lengthy explanation
necessary...

[freethoughtmom]

I strongly recommend the excellent book Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer (he also wrote the book Into the Wild). Krakauer packs the book with many topics - much about the Mormons in particular, but also how a new religion can get its legs & how religions evolve. Even if Romney doesn't get the nomination, this book is relevant to issues that face us today. And as a bonus, you will know a bit about those friendly people knocking on your door...

[GrackMarginal]

Krakauer is a fine, if self-serving, writer. "Into Thin Air" was nothing if not a way to justify his failure to rescue his companions high on Everest. He makes a lot of excuses as he tries to justify leaving them to die. It took some other climbers who were not only physically fit but morally fit to fill the void. (Kudos to David Brashears and his team.) My point is that Krakauer's failure to tell forthright truth carries over to "Under the Banner of Heaven." It's very well written, but slanted. The reader needs to read with caution.

[Potomacker]

How does one jump from the conviction of statutory rape and kidnapping to the blanket condemnation of polygamy? Would anybody make such a similar leap of logic in a situation involving only one 14 year old girl and her rapist in order to condemn monogamy?
I would like to suggest that it is precisely the criminalization of polygamy that allows such a cultist leader to control his followers and for such crimes to occur with delayed impunity. We have decriminalized racial discrimination, (even the the god of the Mormons is against that) why is it still taboo to decriminalize other forms of marriage partnerships?

[GrackMarginal]

I wonder where criticism such as that leveled by Mr. Williams against Mormons can ever stop. After all, the Mormons and many other sects currently exclude women from their priesthood. Now that Mormons allow blacks, perhaps Mr. Williams will have to take up the feminist cause.

Beyond this silliness is a serious question: Is it fair to deny a religious group an opportunity to evolve and get better? You can see doctrinal evolution in many churches. Yet Mr. Williams wants to freeze in time an old moment in Mormon history because it seems to bolster an argument against Mormons today. Why not let goodness grow, for heaven's sake? Don't criticize people for their virtues. Wasn't it a good change to bring everyone, regardless of race, into full fellowship? Why isn't that worthy of praise rather than an entry point for further criticism? I suppose the answer to that question depends upon one's prejudices.

[GrackMarginal]

Some interesting insights in a five-minute search on black Mormons.

http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/211413/

http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/147054/

Somewhere I have some profiles of black Mormons who talk very eloquently about their race and their faith. I'll post them if anyone is interested.

I'd say that educated Mormons today do not embrace the old curse of Cain idea. The institutional church has not spoken on the subject at all except to say that all worthy males are now welcome in the church's priesthood.

In fairness to Mormons, the Curse/Cain/Ham doctrine was held as true by many Christians in the 19th century and earlier. But it's also worth noting that church founder Joseph Smith once ordained a black man to the priesthood (pre-Civil War by more than 15 years), so an unbiased researcher needs to look beyond mere race for an explanation of the ban. It is widely thought by believing Mormons that God told Smith to stop ordaining blacks because the fledgling church was not strong enough to withstand the prevailing racial prejudice in the United States. That explanation remains plausible even into the 20th century.

Yet I would say that Mormons have long been friendly to blacks, despite the discomfort brought by the official exclusion from the priesthood. It's a bit silly for Mr. Williams to profess shock that it took until "1978!" for the Mormons to repudiate the practice of denying priesthood to blacks. After all, it took Congress until 1964! to ban racial discrimination.

[dadw5boys]

I am sure glad we are not forced to belive in their God.

[GenericBlogger]

This article touches on the racism and polygamy issues in the Mormon church, religion in politics, and opens discussion on Romney, an obvious outcome.

Romney is slipping in the polls and will unlikely be the Republican nominee. Romney is too slick, too polished and somewhat detached from John and Jane Public. The country needs a down to earth empathetic president who can lead us out of our trials and tribulations.

Republicans don't have much of a chance in 2008 but it has been and will continue to be an interesting election.

Now that the compound outside of Eldorado Texas is known for its polygamy practices, will the authorities let it be or try to do something about it?

A side issue is the polygamous Muslims living in countries that forbid such marriages.

[RealBlackGirl]

Well now we know why he isn't at the Morgan State debate tonight.

[OckhamsElectricRazor]

Isn't it ironic that the only Repub frontrunner having had one wife is the Mormon.

[Fleaglelord]

That is ironic. But as the piece says, polygamy was outlawed by the mother church almost 120 years ago, so they've obviously had ample time to adjust. Their race issues are of far more recent vintage.

[mommadona]

Yes, it certainly does.

Also, how the majority of CIA and other intelligence agencies are manned by "good Mormons" in strange proportions to the "general public".

And the economic power wielded by "the church", including a very profitable "Porn for Pay" business operated by the Marriott (what happens in your suite stays in your suite) Hotel conglomerate.

http://www.iowaindependent.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=559

http://www.mormonstoday.com/000625/B4Marriott01.shtml

http://global.forbes.com/free_forbes/2004/0510/066_2.html