Romney, Lawrence O'Donnell, Anti-Mormon Rants

This is a note about Milt Romney, Lawrence O'Donnell, Mormon-bashing and my father's broken nose.

I intend to vote for anyone nominated by the Democrats for president. I'm happy with all of the Democratic candidates, whom I consider a talented group.* The Republican field is something else, but at least four could arguably lead the country with vigor and competence, including, in particular, McCain, Romney, Huckabee, and Giuliani. I find Huckabee's populism surprisingly appealing, but his preacher routine creepy. Giuliani is the most scary of the bunch (do we really want a smarter version of Bush?), and unfortunately, all of the Republicans are expected to attack the right to a legal abortion. The only Republican I would consider voting for would be McCain, because he has been a good leader on issues such as campaign finance reform and torture, as he is in protecting consumers and taxpayers.

Early on, I was intrigued with Romney's campaign. By any objective evaluation, Romney was a good governor of Massachusetts, and is impressive in many other areas. But in running for president, he took a sharp turn to the right, and began giving these terrible stump speeches, designed to appeal the most narrow-minded, bigoted and stupid elements of the Republican primary voters. At the end of the day, however, the biggest hurdle he faces is the narrow-minded and bigotry of voters, when it comes to the Mormon religion.

I pretty much expected to see Romney have trouble with the Republican rank and file. I have been a bit disappointed to see the way some of the liberals have engaged in Mormon-bashing. Lawrence O'Donnel's "I don't hate Mormons. Some of my best friends are Mormons," post in the HuffPost was a gloves off rant against Mormons, that I found offensive, in a personal way.

My father was Mormon. I was raised in my mother's faith, as a Methodist. My mother disliked the Mormon faith as passionately as she loved my father, and I grew up knowing next to nothing about the Mormon religion. One day, as a child, I was ridiculing some literature I had found about the Mormon religion, to my father. He took me aside and told me that that every religion could be made to look ridiculous. He said that seemingly absurd doctrines and beliefs were not very important, and that one had to consider more generally the values that each religion espoused, and the way it comforted or improved the lives of its believers.

My father grew up in a small and poor ranching town during in the Depression. His mother was very poor, and she converted after being helped by Mormons. Growing up, he got into a number of fights, for simply being a Mormon. His broken nose was a reminder of this. He later worked his way through college, enlisted in World War II, where he served in the infantry, was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge. He went on to law school, and eventually helped found the city of Bellevue, Washington, where he was elected mayor, and later became a judge.

There are plenty of reasons to oppose Mitt Romney's candidacy. But his religion is not one of them. Would O'Donnell have opposed Mo Udall's candidacy on the same grounds? Should the Democrats dump Harry Reid?

My father was right. Every religion can look absurd, from the outside. A literal reading of the Bible gives a lot of room for ridicule, and even more so are the many highly visible spokespersons for the Christian religion (James Dobson, Pope Benedict XVI, Ann Coulter, etc). Are my children "Jewish" because their mother is Jewish? We are taught relentlessly to hate Islamic fundamentalists. There are plenty of wacky things to notice about many other religions, sects and philosophies.

I agree with O'Donnell that we need to acknowledge both freedoms "of" and "from" religion. For non-believers, it is a mystery why anyone would buy any of this hocus pocus, and it is an open question whether or not at any given moment religions have on balance promoted war or peace, love or hate. But for now, many people, including Romney, are not likely to abandon their religious beliefs, both because they sense something fundamentally wholesome and uplifting in the faith, and they love the community that shares the faith.

If the Democrats want to be a majority party, they should reject religious bigotry. Romney has said a lot of appalling things on the campaign trail. But no one should hold his religion against him.

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*With the exception of the former Senator from Alaska.

Comments

[2much2do]

I am a Mormon and I'm neither stupid nor blind. What many people fail to recognize is the duality of man. We can see and know things on an intellectual level. But we can also see and know things on an internal (some would say spiritual) level.

Some people only see things intellectually and dismiss feelings of divine guidance. Others only see things spiritually and selectively ignore rational arguments that don't support their perceptions. But I believe it is possible, and beneficial, to develop both senses.

Having an internal testimony of truth does not make a person stupid. Mankind has been praying for centuries - long before a book called, "The Secret" revealed that verbally expressing our thanks and making requests to "the universe" would help us reach our goals.

My religious beliefs seem strange. But they are no more strange than the idea that this planet is the result of some cosmic accident. I could argue that anyone who believes this complex planet had no creator is unfit to lead. It's the same argument being used against religious candidates.

[S1m0n]

Mormonism being 'made to look absurd' isn't the issue. Mormonism looking -- in fact, being -- being racist is. Take it as personally as you like. Racism's personal, too.

[LeoMarvin]

I’ve burned enough Huffpost bandwidth already on the O’Donnell thread explaining my objections to his rant and the comments that support it. So rather than continue that argument, I’d like to invite the anti-Mormon commenters to flesh out some ambiguities in their comments. For example, assuming for the sake of argument that the Church did modify its pre-1978 racial policies for self-serving reasons, what conclusions do you believe we should draw about the Church’s racial policies today, the racial views of Mitt Romney, and those of ordinary Church members? How does the assumption lead you logically to the conclusions? Who do you hope to reach with those comments, and what liberal/progressive policy objective(s) do you hope to further?

I’m not trying to be coy. My opinions are no secret. But I don’t want to be guilty of making the same kind of overgeneralizations I’ve criticized, so if there are better answers to these questions than those I’ve seen or inferred from the comments to date, please share them. Obviously I can’t force anyone to answer all these questions or any of them, but I hope some will, because they are begged by the bulk of the previous commentary. So please, disabuse me of my impression that much of the hostility to Mormonism expressed on these threads conflicts with everything we stand for and hope to accomplish as liberal Americans.

[SamThornton]

The only flaw I can find in removing religion as an issue from the campaign is the sad fact that like the rest of the Republicans running for the nomination, candidate Romney himself has made his Christian bonafides a very big issue, and I don't refer to his defense of Mormonism.

I agree that religion should not be injected into politics, but when the candidates themselves inject it into the equation, simply ignoring it neither makes it go away nor answers their self-serving arguments.

As for Romney's Mormonism itself being an issue, so long as he has chosen to make his religious beliefs a selling point, I don't see how it can fairly be excluded from discussion.

[jhNY]

The question that needs Romney's answer, and for once a clear answer, is: how free do you as a believer feel to go against the direction of the elders in your church? The conformist in Romney is always on view--- I'd like to hear about how he will or won't be conferring with the elders as president. It's my understanding that a Mormon in good standing is not free to make his mind up in opposition to Mormon teachings or in contrast to the counsel of the elders, unless he would risk damnation. And Mitt hardly looks like the risk-taking type.

And while I'm sure George Romney did generally support civil rights, and maybe one day had his son by his side, (and I think a march in Grosse Point might have taken more political courage by the time he marched than a march in a Southern city), it was still a matter of Mormon doctrine (and thus not amenable to much divergent interpretation) until the 1970's that Black people were as a race incapable of reaching the uppermost levels of Mormon heaven. I'd like to know something about Mitt's work within the church to change that doctrine. In the '60's I mean, when civil rights was the most important poltical movement of the day, and he was a young idealistic young man. My guess is: you won't find any record of such work in Mr. Mitt Romney's past.

Finally, I'd like to say I am happy that we are a nation of toleration and that folks are free to believe whatever they wish. I don't think though, that all beliefs are created equal, or that it doesn't matter what a president believes. We have endured 2 terms of messianic malfeasance under the millenialist misrule of a born-again boozehound turned Evangelical Christian. We are presently reaping the whirlwind of his beliefs. Let's not, please, send another believer to do our nation's work in the White House. Let's get somebody in there that knows some things.

[DemandTruth]

I think you're confused. Or you're buying in to republican talking points again. Liberals do NOT object to religion. We do NOT object to politicians holding their own, private religious beliefs. We DO believe in that freedom of and from religion thing everybody is always talking about. That's from AND of. We are just fine with that.

The problem liberals have is when religious leaders shape politics (and therefore our own lives) by shoving their particular peculiar religious beliefs into our government. The problem is when polictical leaders pander to or favor religious leaders in trying to gain votes or power.

There is a reason we have a separation of church and state. Liberals have to problem with the church - as long as the church remains private and separate from the state. Romney can and should worship who/whatever he wants in the privacy of his own home. He can wear regular or magical underwear - I don't care. What I believe Lawrence & I object to is Romney saying from a public bully pulpit while running to by MY supreme leader that "freedom requires religion".

I have NO PROBLEM with people believing in whatever historical written and oral mythology and they choose. Just keep that mythology and those afterlife-judging supernatural Beings OUT of my life - all aspects of my life.

[belikejeanvaljean]

What I find appalling about Romney is his unwillingness to take a firm stand on the war in Iraq. If you go to his campaign website and look at the issues page, there is nothing about our occupation of Iraq or a plan to get us out of there. Iraq is one of the most important issues of the day (if not *the* most important) and he has nothing on it? It is more important for him to give a speech on his plan for Iraq than the faith of his fathers. Since he says nothing about it, I take it his plan is to continue the lunacy of GWB.

Incidentally, regarding "spokespersons" for Christianity: Christians have no need for spokespersons, who are a creation of the modern media world. As an evangelical Christian, I can say that none of these people speaks for me, and they frequently are an embarrassment.

[Querent]

"Should the Democrats dump Harry Reid?"
Damn straight. Not because he's a Mormon, but because he's a spineless, yellow-bellied laughingstock who is incompetent to be one of our leaders.

[realitytrumpsbull]

To speak from the heathen-am­erican(can I get money for that, too? Please? I'm kinda tight
on cash, they spend billions on everything else, why not a Heathen-American Foundation?) perspective, while I do have respect for True
Believers of all stripes, of late it's become
readily apparent that herding/leading the Devout
around with pulpit-based rhetoric is a fairly
easy vehicle to war. Nothing more or less is
happening around the world than that people
are being agitated toward war through the use
of faith-based politics, complete with a full
assortment of social engineering propaganda,
choose your favorite brand. Notably absent,
though, is a full accounting of what happens
to all of this money.

Remember the Moonies? Jonestown? Rajneesh,
Koresh, Heaven's Gate? These are more prominent
recent examples of religious fervor being
bent to someone's politico-s­ocio-econo­mic
ambitions, and the Church in all its' various
forms and manifestations has been signed up
'for the war effort' before. Roll way back,
and you've got the Greeks and the Romans going
to war in the name of their gods, the Aztecs
used to conduct worship services after a battle
by using some of their captives as hors d'ouvres
AND staircase safety demonstrators, people that
get their Jesus on and start loading ammo make
me, um, nervous. In short? God, save me from
your fan club, or have lots of guns and that 'gleam' in their eyes, also the ones that think it's OK to pan-handle people in the name of God. RIGHT, 'Larry'? Lest we forget...thou shalt not steal, and all that...I think you
should have to have a Jesus license, and a short
class on what cults are, what fraud is, and
so forth, before you get to represent ANY
Church. McJesus is online and looking for
the Faithful, now...

[kirotahoe]

mitt reminds me of one of those guys that has a double billed baseball cap and turns it on his head to reflect which team's stadium he is in.

[kirotahoe]

if you are not lds then try living in utah for at least three months. then tell me there is no reason to dis the mormons.

[apsmith]

Wow, we didn't get enough of the religious arguments on O'Donnell's thread so folks are starting it up again here?

Mr. Love - thanks for your thoughtful words, and those of your father. Did your mother ever communicate why she disliked Mormonism so much?

[jackbauer0396]

I agree with a lot of what you say--my problem is, however, not the fact that Romney is a Mormon. It's the fact that he claims to strictly adhere to its dictates. I'm terrified of any fundamentalists who refuse to objectively view their religion and not be willing to give-and-take. I, as a Catholic, do not regard the Pope as infallible and do not think that sacrament is the literal "body of Christ", but that is what my church believes. It's my prerogrative to refuse to acknowledge certain tenets of my religion. Romney has shunned that prerogative.

[BillZBubb]

The RepubliCLOWNS can't have it both ways: They can't appeal to religious fundamentalism while campaigning and then argue that they can't be attacked for their religious beliefs. Like you, they'll scream it is unfair and "bigoted". That is nonsense.

In private life, Romney can be a Mormon, Baptist, Jew, atheist, or even a Hottentot for that matter. No one would or should care.

But, since he is running as the representative of the "party of God and God's values," a close examination of how he sees that God is more than appropriate--it is necessary.

[drmindcrime]

Ummm....Ann Coulter is a major spokes(thing) for the Christian religion? What exactly are you smoking? Judging from your post I gather that you were in favor of the bigoted and polygamist practices of the Mormon faith? Would you care to defend these or are you content to simply bash the strawman of tolerance some more? Romney isn't simply a candidate who happens to be a Mormon, he is the MORMON candidate. He has made his religious beliefs front and center by making a major speech about them. That makes them fair game for criticism. I'm all for religious tolerance but we don't have to blindly accept his beliefs without question any more than we have to accept the fact that Guliani says he was a hero of 9-11, while in reality his incompetence aided the terrorists in their mission.