Years ago I once interviewed comedian Jay Leno and he told me something I've never forgotten and think of quite often: when he wants to make fun of a fat man, he never makes fun of him for being fat; rather, he makes fun of his tie.
I think of Leno's maxim whenever I hear conservative Christian voters criticizing Mitt Romney for his alleged failings like Romneycare, flip-flopping, lack of personality etc. because like Leno, what I think they're really doing is describing his "tie" instead of saying what they truly mean to say: he's a Mormon.
As this obfuscation indicates however, it's a prejudice that nobody wants to cop to because there seems to be a general feeling that it's an icky one and so as a result, mainstream journalists continue to be befuddled over Romney's lack of success and try to blame it on the various criticisms of his "tie," only it's not about his "tie," it's about his religion.
But a journalist named Warren Cole Smith has ended the nonsense and has decided to speak the truth on behalf his fellow Evangelical Christians by stating the obvious: he and many of his fellow true believers will not vote for Mitt Romney because he's a Mormon.
I first became aware of just how deep and serious this phenomenon was when my friend Adam Christing returned from producing a documentary on the founder of the LDS church, Joseph Smith called A Mormon President. Christing, a film producer, author and comedian told me he was shocked at the deep resentment that is felt to this day for the LDS church on the part of many of the people he had interviewed in the South and Midwest. I decided to investigate for myself and asked two moderate Republican Evangelical Christian friends what they would do if the choice was between Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton: without hesitation they said they'd vote for Clinton because of Romney's Mormon faith.
The L.A. Times' Tim Rutten and others have weighed in with attacks on Smith, but this is a mistake because far from shouting down the likes of Smith, this objection needs to be debated openly and honestly if for no other reason than to help the poor Romney kids from watching their inheritance being squandered on a fool's errand. After all, if Evangelical Christians who form the base of the GOP are not going to vote for a Mormon under any circumstances, even willing to turn to the other party's candidate, Mormons like Romney deserve to know the truth.
I would venture to say that the feeling is so strong that millions of Christians would easily prefer a Jewish candidate, say Eric Cantor, over a Mormon one like Romney because though they may wish that Cantor would accept Jesus Christ as his personal savior, they would never label Judaism as a cult, as they would the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Smith may not be a politician, but his contribution to our political culture fits Michael Kinsley's definition of a gaffe: when a politician tells the truth. He has let the cat out of the bag by admitting that he and millions of churchgoing Christians will not vote for Mitt Romney and if he somehow gets through a GOP primary, they may very well stay home come election day or vote for the incumbent president who, despite his policies which may be diametrically opposed to what they believe in, can look them in the eyes and recount with clarity his testimony of the day he asked Jesus Christ to become his Lord and Savior.
Follow Mark Joseph on Twitter: www.twitter.com/markmjm
Abraham H. Foxman: Keep Religion Out of Politics
This is why the democracies would have inevitably won in WWII. The Germans chased out anyone with an unacceptable religion, with the result that people like Einstein went to the US and contributed to things like the Manhattan Project.
Thankfully, the theocrats in the GOP, will similarly keep shooting themselves in the foot because when you get right down to it, the majority of Americans don't want a right wing theocracy. We like to party too much.
A useful sentence stem... one could replace the word "prejudice" with "person" "philosophy" "theory" etc. I'm putting this one in my little book of conversation starters.
"We do not believe it just to mingle religious influence with civil government, whereby one religious society is fostered and another proscribed in its spiritual privileges, and the individual rights of its members, as citizens, denied."
Driven by spiritual and even financial insecurity (after all anti-"cult"ism pays well and thrives on ignorance) to tell the world, and particularly their own now numerically stagnating flock, to take a dim view of/dislike/and even hate the honesty of a remarkable boy prophet. A boy from a deeply Christian family who had no other desire but that of knowing the truth. A boy who, due to the grace of God, (who calls powerless, pure, teachable youths over the proud, established and learned at key new-dispensation moments in His guidance of mankind) became the only person in history to see God the Eternal Father and His Son, side by side.
A boy who knew Who he had seen and heard, and could not deny it, notwithstanding the immediate relief from persecution a denial would bring. An undeviatingly pure agenda, unlike the varied agendas of the ministers who vilified him in his day and in many cases continue to do so. just like the "men of God" in Christ's day and, in some cases, today. By their fruits ye shall know them. The Church will increasingly cover the earth, while successive waves of enemies will fade from the footnotes of history.
So far, however, I’m not so sure about most of our leading politicians. Power and the promise of power has a tendency to corrupt. Christians of all denominations know we are to be in the world but not of the world. Huntsman…Romney….dubious at best, notwithstanding impressive attributes. Give me integrity aka Ron Paul (no wonder he’s “unelectable” – follow the money) over a compromising Mormon/anyone else every time!
This whole thing makes me thank God the founding fathers put the First Amendment into the Constitution. Without separation of church and state this country wouldn't have lasted past 1900.
The candidate (or party) that convinces voters their solutions, vision of the future of this country are best, will ultimately win. Many registered Democrats and Republicans have voted across party lines. There are numerous Independents who don't cling to party loyalty any more than they would elect someone because of religious affiliation (or lack of any).
The hard-core, far-right Christian Evangelicals believe they can turn this country into a theocracy, and are basing their agendas-policies solely in line with their religious views, which the majority of Americans distrust and rejct. The American public is pragmatic, seeks viable solutions to issues that need to be dealt with, and are becoming frustrated with these side-shows and games, based on religious-political ideologs: re-defining rape; anti-abortion agendas; seeking the restoration of the Kingdom of Israel so we can hasten the Rapture, etc.
The first amendment says that government shall not establish a state religion, and can't prohibit people the freedom to worship as they want, or believe as they want. And that includes how I vote.
-- President George Washington, from his Farewell Address, as cited in _Basic American Documents_, pp.108-9. Emphasis mine.
What was that you were saying about the "fathers of America"?
Of course, Washington didn't write the Declaration of Independence (that was mostly Thomas Jefferson), or the Constitution (that was mostly James Madison), or the Bill of Rights (Jefferson, again) or any of the other Ammendments.
Perhaps Washington was the greatest of the Founding Fathers (historians almost universally agree that this was the concensus among his contemporaries), but his personal philosophies and ideas regarding our rights and the reach of the government are largely absent from the country's founding documents.