How Barack Obama inadevertently helped Prop. 8. Will African-Americans share in the blame with Mormons?
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Wow. This isn’t exactly subtle.
KUTV summarizes this full-on attack ad smearing the LDS Church:
In the commercial they knock on the door, say they are from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and tell a lesbian couple “we are here to take away your rights.”
They enter the home take the women’s rings, ransack the house looking for their marriage license, find it, and then tear it up.
At the end, the missionaries was away saying, “that was too easy, yeah, what should we ban next?”
So who has the campaign of hate? Mormon missionaries are now portrayed as fascist stormtroopers out to take away people’s rights? What kind of treatment is in store for missionaries going door to door or proselytizing in the streets?
Last week several commenters suggested that much of the Pro-Prop 8 arguments were attacks on the judges. Somehow using the same arguments as the dissenting justices was demonizing the court and judicial system. I would like to ask those commenters how does this ad compare? Not being in California, I don’t know but I fear for the damage this will to do the Church in California.
This isn’t your quickie dime-a-dozen internet ad. It’s professionally done and KUTV reports it will be airing tomorrow in California as well as on CNN and MSNBC.
I guess this is what was meant when a San Francisco city attorney said that the Prop 8 debate was a “blood feud” with the Mormon Church.
UPDATE: The Church’s response:
“The Church has joined a broad-based coalition in defense of traditional marriage. While we feel this is important to all of society, we have always emphasized that respect be given to those who feel differently on this issue. It is unfortunate that some who oppose this proposition have not given the Church this same courtesy.”
[via Article VI]
While still campaigning against Mitt Romney as VP, Mike Huckabee took to the Rush Limbaugh show to deny he’s anti-Mormon.
RUSH: Thank you. So are you, sir. Now let’s get right to the chase here. I said something a couple weeks ago, maybe ten days ago, about you and Governor Romney that you strenuously objected to. What was it that I said that was incorrect?
HUCKABEE: Well, that I had made an issue out of his religion and had sort of poisoned him with evangelicals and that’s simply not true. You know, one of the things that I’ve been very adamant about is that I don’t think his religion has one thing to do with whether people should support him. Some of my favorite public servants in America happen to be the same religion he is, the Morman religion. That would be people like Mike Leavitt, Orrin Hatch, Jon Huntsman, the current governor of Utah. Great people. It has nothing to do with it.
RUSH: Yeah, but they’re not running for president nor running against you for the nomination. I guess I track this back to at one point you talking about what Romney believes, that Christ and Lucifer were brothers.
HUCKABEE: It was a question that I actually asked of the New York Times Magazine writer, because he knew a lot more about Mormonism than I did. It appeared as 11 words in about a 10,000-word story, and that got all the play. I personally apologized to Mitt because it did come across wrong and it’s simply not the way I feel and it isn’t, and I don’t think Mitt Romney’s religion has a thing to do with it. I think, you know, a record has to do with it, but not his religion. And frankly, my attitude is, the primary’s over, we need to get behind John McCain, support him, He’s our best chance, right now, our only chance to beat Barack Obama, and Barack Obama will destroy small business, his plans for higher taxes would be abominable, and his absolutely frankly deplorable view about when life begins is nothing short of frightening.
The Veepstakes has been such a merry go round this summer with a new favorite every week, it’s hard to take a breathless report citing “sources” seriously (sort of like geek journalists reporting on the latest Facebook buyout >ahem< ).
But Mark Halperin at Time is reporting that two knowledgeable GOP sources are confirming that McCain will be picking Mitt Romney as his vice-presidential nominee.
[via Hot Air]
MORE: Now Halperin is hedging while citing a NY Times article that says its down to Romney and Pawlenty. Hot Air theorizes that Halperin’s sources were merely Romney partisans hoping to gin up some buzz. That and prey upon poor, gullible bloggers (couch! cough!) who should know better but are nearly exhausted with this election.
Either way, Gov. Huckabee sure hopes it’s not Romney. I can’t tell if he thinks he’s still running in the 2008 campaign or if he has already kicked off for 2012.
Link: sevenload.com
At least he’s emphatic that he’s not against Romney because of his religion. He spent the first 1:15 making sure we knew that Mormonism shouldn’t be the issue, then came back to it at 1:55 just to make it clear. It’s almost as if he wanted to make sure everyone knew Romney was Mormon.
Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) was on satellite radio last week applauding California’s gay marriage decision. While bemoaning how “born-again Christians and their right wing loonies” were going to make a democratic ballot inititiave “nasty” he turned his attention to Mormons.
I wonder what they’re going to do with the Mormons. I’d like to put polygamy up if they want to fight this battle. Let’s go into Utah and have it out. I mean, I don’t have any quarrel with polygamy, as long as they leave little kids alone, which is child abuse.
But if you want to have three husbands, be my guest. I think that to me, that’s your decision.
I think it’s kind of humorous you’re going to find the Mormons leading the fight against gay marriage, which is an interesting commentary on what you believe.
It would help to avoid getting nasty if he got his facts straight.
Evangelical backlash for not embracing Romney?
This is commonly known as being hoisted by one’s own petard. The problem the Religious Right had in this primary was the hang-up over religion, which their movement had avoided for most of its period of influence. In the end, their leaders couldn’t see past religion to policy, and that left Romney twisting in the wind . . .
When they finally engaged with Romney, they liked his agenda and his ability to organize. Pat Robertson endorsed Rudy Giuliani, but most evangelical leaders lined up behind Romney, but refused to support Romney rather than just attack everyone else. They could not bring themselves to explain why Romney’s Mormonism shouldn’t matter, and indeed emphasized their analysis of it as a non-Christian religion, something Mormons hotly dispute. They lost sight of the political agenda and instead got tripped by their doctrinal agenda.
Depending on how the McCain campaign goes, it will be interesting to see if resentment towards Evangelicals builds.
“Huckabee: Perceived anti-LDS comment taken out of context, misunderstood”
Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee says it is “unfounded” for anyone to say he has alienated the Mormon community or that he used rival Mitt Romney’s LDS faith as a wedge issue.
Try explaining that to the reddest state of the untion which would prefer Obama to Huckabee 58 to 42 in a head to head to race.
It’s good that Huckabee can’t escape (yet) what may be his legacy of the 2008 campaign. But in the end it may be best for the rest of us to move on.
Huckabee ran television spots in Iowa calling himself a “Christian leader,” and refused to say whether he thought the LDS Church was a cult, referring that question instead to Romney. Kirk Jowers, director of the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute for Politics and a Romney friend and supporter, said he wonders whether Huckabee’s response Tuesday was “revisionist history.
“[But] I’m very happy to hear him say that,” Jowers said. “And I suppose the best thing to do is accept him at his word. However, his approach to Romney’s religion seemed very different in the days leading up to Iowa.”
“Romney’s Mormonism WAS a Big Factor” and it goes both ways:
By the way, those Democrats who might chortle that Republican intolerance cost them their best candidate, don’t get too smug. Our survey showed that Democrats were just as intolerant of Mormons as Republicans are. At least they have that in common.
Different Mormon reactions to the Mormon Question at Article VI Blog. I’m both surprised and offended and hope to be a bridge-builder.
Romney opponents posing as missionaries in Virginia? I don’t know. Sounds like this lady is in the DC South Mission. I’m in the DC North Mission, and as annoying as it may be, it’s not unheard of to go tracting at 7:30 pm.
But if they weren’t “good looking enough to be Mormons,” well I guess that rules them out.
I don’t think anti-Mormonism has played a large, if any role in the primaries, but this email to NRO takes it easy on those who say they’ll never vote for a Mormon.
I’d like to address your emailers who say they’ll never vote for a Mormon.
Though I’m a Mormon, I kind of sympathize with them. Evangelicals have been taught for years by their pastors that we’re Satanic. This attitude is so prevalent that after Hurricane Katrina, some people refused to accept help if it came from an LDS volunteer. That’s some seriously irrational fear—but sincere nonetheless. And many religious people believe that to vote for someone they think is evil (no matter how conservative his politics) is to risk losing God’s protection. This is a huge differentiating belief between religious conservatives and, say, liberals. We hold allegiance to a higher authority.
Whether he wins or loses, I’m glad that Romney’s run has given my church more exposure—but not so we can get more converts. Rather, I’d like people to get to know us and judge for themselves what we’re like. And, ironically, people who claim they’re not voting for Romney because he’s Mormon have only drawn more attention to our religion, and in a far more positive way than they intended.
Why does the AP have to go to church critics as the go-to guys for commentary on the Church?
Yesterday, Jennifer Dobner of the AP, wrote a story on Church leadership succession which mostly quoted two outspoken Church critics, Grant Palmer and Ed Firmage (“WWII vet, 80, likely next Mormon leader“). This led Ryan at RomneyExperience to say:
Hint: When covering a story within Mormonism, if you find that your three quoted sources are a famously disfellowshipped Mormon (something close to excommunication) a famously lapsed Mormon, and a non-Mormon, consider a re-write.
Perhaps sensing some problems with her sources, Dobner filed another story last night based on the commentary of D. Michael Quinn and Steve Benson (“Mormon succession holds little suspense“). At least it includes comments from Richard Bushman and Richard Ostling, but it also fails to mention that Benson is an ardent ex-Mormon, not just a “grandson of former church president Ezra Taft Benson.”
GetReligion rightly questions why church critics are used in this kind of story but missed the first article.
The Church has put plenty of material on its Newsroom website for reporters to use and I’m sure a spokesperson would be more than happy to offer a statement on behalf of the Church. Instead the AP has to resort to church critics. I would suggest that Dobner get a bigger Rolodex.
Another example why Mormons should get more involved in the old and new media.
Internet survey claims Romney’s “Flip-flopper” label may be due to anti-Mormonism
Bias against Mitt Romney’s religion is one of the reasons that the tag “flip-flopper” sticks with the former Massachusetts governor but not his Republican opponents, according to Vanderbilt political scientist John Geer. “There is no question that Romney has changed his positions on some issues, but so have some of the other candidates,” Geer said. “Why does the label stick to Romney but not his opponents? At least some of the answer lies in Romney’s Mormon beliefs.”
It’s an internet survey so who knows. But that makes some sense as a lot of the recent discussion on the Church has tried to cram its history into a narrative that’s similar to how Romney has been portrayed: secretive, too-flexible, and deceitful. (Thanks, Article VI)
They told me if Mitt Romney ran for president that massive networks of religious leaders would use questionable means to pressure their followers to vote. And they were right!
So pro-Huckabee organizers say they are focusing their entire effort on turning out evangelical church goers. They plan to call every evangelical pastor in the state over the next few days. Those ministers can’t endorse any candidate from the pulpit — but they can tell their parishioners that “it’s their Christian duty,” to turn out on primary day, said Glenn. “And we know who they’ll be voting for.”
(With apologies to Instapundit.)
Dave’s right. Since Elder Ballard’s call for Latter-day Saints to get more involved in new media, there has been an uptick in LDS blogs and Mormon bloggers. And LDS and Mormon Blogs has definitely received more submissions for LDS-themed, particularly for missionary and doctrine-oriented blogs
Like Jeff Lindsay, I have received some questions on how to start a blog and I thought I’d post this here for future reference .
1. Before you start a blog, read a lot of different blogs and decide for yourself what makes a successful blog.
Blogging may sound interesting and it’s commendable to want to follow Elder Ballard’s suggestion. But unless you have already read blogs for awhile, I would suggest that you hold off starting your own and read many different blogs first.
Check out the Bloggernacle at LDS and Mormon Blogs and Mormon Archipelago. Also, look at non-LDS blogs to get some ideas.
As Jeff suggests, the best thing you can do may be to not start a blog but instead contribute in the comments of other blogs, forums, or other websites. It may be more useful to engage bloggers who are uninformed about the church and post respectful comments, giving them further light and knowledge rather than the heat that so many generate. Participating in thoughtful discussions or civilly correcting someone in error may be preferable to just being another voice in the wilderness.
On the other hand, one of the great things about blogging is that it is so easy to start, you may just want to disregard the above advice and just dive in and learn by doing.
Matt Evans has an excellent and positive take on how hard Iowa was for Romney and even understandable for Evangelicals to vote as they did:
The anti-Mormon vote would be in that 56-11% gap (and the gap in the “religious views mattered somewhat” group CNN didn’t report), but of course not all of that gap would be anti-Mormon — some of it would be that evangelicals simply like, identify, and understand Huckabee’s religious views, and other things being equal, voters prefer the familiar. In this sense being Mormon is a bigger obstacle than being black or female — voters are more familiar with blacks and females and don’t find being black or female strange.
A Jehovah’s Witness would face the same issues running for Utah governor. Identity and unfamiliarity would be larger obstacles than would religious discrimination. Then imagine the JW’s challenge among the San Pete County GOP (Utah’s Iowa equivalent) if he had been a pro-choice mayor of Salt Lake (Utah’s Massachusetts equivalent), and was on record claiming to better support gay rights than Rocky Anderson (Utah’s Teddy Kennedy equivalent). Placing second in a crowded field of respectable candidates would be a gleeming silver medal.
Would a Romney presidency help the Mormon Church? Probably not:
THE ONLY PROBLEM with those fears is that they don’t add up. Evangelicals may be surprised to learn that the growth of church membership in Massachusetts slowed substantially during Romney’s tenure as governor. In fact, one could make the absurdly simplistic argument that Romney was bad for Mormonism. . .
During the Romney years, the number of Mormon wards and branches, congregations that are created and dissolved based on geography and population, in the Bay State rose by one and fell by one, indicating that congregational growth was static. Nationwide, the number of congregations grew by 7.3 percent.
Just as Romney seemed to finally answer the call to address the Mormon Question, the Huckabee surge came and fulfilled a year’s coverage of whether Evangelicals would vote for a Mormon. The Iowa race was thus declared a “Holy War.”
Frank Lockwood makes the point that Evangelicals aren’t bigoted because a majority of Evangelicals voted for someone other than Huckabee. Of course, Evangelicals aren’t the monolithic vote that they are too often described to be, just as Mormons aren’t. Looking at the Iowa’s exit polls, Romney got the second-most number of evangelicals with 19% to Huckabee’s 46%
But, further review shows that Huckabee captured the religious beliefs vote with 56% of those who replied they mattered a “Great Deal” and 30% who said “Somewhat.” Romney won the vote of those who said “Not Much” (38%) or “Not at All” (40%).
I don’t want to overtstate the impact of the anti-Mormon vote. Above all, I think it would be wrong and a huge mistake if Mormons joined the ranks of aggrieved minorities. But it does look like Huckabee’s Christian identity pitch and leveraging anti-Momon sentiments made a difference.
UPDATE: Evangelicals were also 60% of the vote, up from 39% in 2000. Huckabee’s surge unleashed a tsunami.
Helpful little AP story that ran on Iowa news yesterday:
Mormons support Romney as he supports Mormon businesses
The Republican presidential contender and his staff have largely been using Marriott hotels while on the campaign trail, including Romney’s headquarters for the Iowa caucuses. The chain’s founder J. Willard Marriott is a fellow member of the Mormon church.
Romney has chartered a JetBlue aircraft to fly to New Hampshire after the Iowa caucuses. The airline was founded by a Mormon who now serves as the company’s chairman.
The New Hampshire AG is getting closer to the source of this anti-Mormon push polls. Who hired Moore Information?
That pesky MormonCult.org is at it again, helping out Anti-Mormons.
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