Posted on 06/10/2007 7:24:29 PM PDT by Reaganesque
Sally Denton uses today's Los Angeles Times op-ed page as a launching pad for the movie based on her book, "American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 1857," and as a means to propagate more anti-Mormon bigotry at the expense of Mitt Romney. Denton insists that Romney has to respond about the nature of his faith if he expects to win the nomination for the Presidency -- and uses a lot of 19th-century examples to "prove" her case:
MITT ROMNEY'S Mormonism threatens his presidential candidacy in the same way that John F. Kennedy's Catholicism did when he ran for president in 1960. Overt and covert references to Romney's religion — subtle whispering as well as unabashed inquiries about the controversial sect he belongs to — plague his campaign. None of his responses so far have silenced the skeptics.
Recent polls indicate that from 25% to 35% of registered voters have said they would not consider voting for a Mormon for president, and conventional wisdom from the pundits suggests that Romney's biggest hurdle is his faith. Everyone seems eager to make his Mormonism an issue, from blue state secularists to red state evangelicals who view the religion as a non-Christian cult.
All of which raises the question: Are we religious bigots if we refuse to vote for a believing Mormon? Or is it perfectly sensible and responsible to be suspicious of a candidate whose creed seems outside the mainstream or tinged with fanaticism?
Ironically, Romney is the only candidate in the race (from either party) who has expressed discomfort with the idea of religion infecting the national dialogue. While his GOP rivals have been pandering to the evangelical arm of the party, Romney actually committed himself (during the first Republican debate) to the inviolable separation of church and state.
First, Denton is hardly an unbiased pundit in this regard. She's flogging a book and a movie about an atrocity committed by Mormons 150 years ago. For Denton, 1857 is relevant to 2007, but for most Americans. The suggestion that Romney needs to answer for Brigham Young would be as silly as saying that Democrats have to answer for Stephen Douglas or that Lutherans today have to answer for the anti-Semitic rants of Martin Luther.
Denton first off would have people believe that all Mormons are "tinged with fanaticism," but does nothing to advance that case. She discusses the beginnings of their church in great detail, but her history lessons appear to end at 1857. In the only mentions of any connection to the present, she uses the HBO series Big Love and Warren Jeffs, neither of which has any connection to the modern Mormon church or to Romney's faith. Both the fictional account in Big Love and the unfortunately non-fiction and despicable Jeffs involve polygamist cults -- and in the TV series, are showed as in mortal opposition to the Mormons.
Denton includes this helpful instruction at the half-way point:
It's not a church's eccentric past that makes a candidate's religion relevant today, but its contemporary doctrines. (And it's worth noting that polygamy and blood atonement, among other practices, are no longer condoned by the official Mormon church hierarchy.)
So what contemporary doctrines does Romney need to explain? Denton never says. Instead, she spends her time writing about how Joseph Smith once declared his intention to run for President -- in 1844. She discusses how John C. Fremont's candidacy died on the rumor that he was Catholic -- in 1856. She mentions 1960, in which John Kennedy dealt with anti-Catholic bigotry, but only barely notes that he prevailed over it -- and that was almost 50 years ago.
Denton then frames the question that she feels Romney has to answer:
Do you, like the prophet you follow, believe in a theocratic nation state? All the rest is pyrotechnics.
Unfortunately for Denton, Romney has answered this question every time it gets asked. And somewhat incoherently, Denton appears to forget that she herself acknowledges this near the beginning of the column:
While his GOP rivals have been pandering to the evangelical arm of the party, Romney actually committed himself (during the first Republican debate) to the inviolable separation of church and state.
Romney has no need to enter into the field of religious apologetics in his campaign for the presidency, no more than does Harry Reid in order to run the Senate. He certainly has no guilt to expiate on behalf of a massacre committed almost a century before his birth, and for people like Warren Jeffs who do not have any connection to the Mormon church. In other words, Denton has taken up space at the LA Times to exercise her bigotry and to not-so-coincidentally sell a few books and movie tickets. She and the LA Times should be ashamed.
UPDATE: One commenter suggests that people opposed Keith Ellison on the basis of his religion. Er, not quite. We opposed him on the basis of his association with the notoriously anti-Semitic group Nation of Islam and its leader, Louis Farrakhan, and his association with CAIR, which has supported terrorist groups like Hamas. If Romney had spoken at Warren Jeffs' compound for political donations, then the analogy would be apt. Ellison's problem isn't his religion but the company he keeps, politically, a fact that he and his apologists like to wrap in a false cloak of religious antagonism.
Sorry.Hey, it's a start.
And temper. Re: 351Alas: I never got to see 351. The rage and the bile got washed away before I even had the chance to marvel at it.
re; 359
You want to play, too?
re: 360
What part of “get lost” don’t you understand, stupid?
So now I’m “stupid” too, eh?
Select your targets better.
re; 361
See 364, meathead.
It was a marvel to behold.
The statement is conditional. If you knowingly not repent then it is over for you in the next. The vast majority of people in the next life have sinned and rebelled in ignorance.
:)
What part of “get lost” don’t you understand, stupid?You were just now behaving civilly. You even apologized for your behavior.
See 364, meathead.My imam issued a fatwa that forbids me to scroll up. You'll have to explain to me what you mean.
LOL!
So now I’m “stupid” too, eh?Enosh. Hi. Please--I would advise--do not take anything TG writes personally. TG does not select targets, at least not in my experience. He sort of shoots randomly into the crowd. At least this is how it appears. If there is a logic to his attacks I have not been able to discern it. I believe that his behavior has to do with issues that he is experiencing in RL, but this is only supposition.
Select your targets better.
I find your posts amusing and at times instructive, so please take a bit of friendly advice, to prevent being banned from FR: stop referring to TG, or posting to him, or making demeaning comments about him. That is bad from for which you can be banned and it comes across as trying to bait the fellow freeper.
Your logical analysis is, well, disingenuous, and really doesn’t withstand scrutiny utilizing the same standard you seek to apply to Mitt Romney and his faith.
Bill Clinton (Immanuel Baptist Church in Little Rock, Arkansas) and George W. Bush (Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas, Texas) are members of Christian churches. Their respective faiths call the Bible the revealed Word of God. If the Bible is the revealed Word of God, why does it contain the scripturas passages I’ve previously quoted?
If you really were consistent in the application of your standard, you should should have expressed the same concerns for Clinton and Bush’s qualifications to be President based upon their membership in respective faiths which espouse the Bible to be the revealed Word of God and which contains the scriptural passages I’ve previously quoted.
I’ve checked your previous postings to see where you expressed the same concern about Bush in 2000 and 2004, but I couldn’t find where you applied the same standard to Bush that you apply to Romney. Would you be kind enough to identify those posts where you expressed similar concerns about Bush that you do about Romney?
re: 369
“You were just now behaving civilly. You even apologized for your behavior.”
>>>> Not to you, birdbrain. <<<
“I wonder what caused you to regress so suddenly? Hey, I have a thought. Why don’t we try, you know, staying on topic?”
>>>> I have a better one. Why don’t you go soak your head in a barrel — go under three times and come up twice?<<<<
“It’s a wild idea, I’ll grant you that. And it will require supreme discipline on your part: no provocations, no personal attacks, and no sudden ejaculations of rage, panic, terror, or pain.”
>>>> Speaking of ejaculations — why don’t you go over in the corner and play with yourself? Nobody else is interested.<<<
“Please understand: no one here is out to get you.”
>>>> Who said they were? So far it’s only you — makeing a damned pesst of your boorish self.<<<
“So: Let’s give it a shot, shall we?”
Go take a flyhing leap, you obnoxious toad.
re; 370
Trying to be clever again, imbecile?
‘Tain’t working.
re: 365
“So now I’m “stupid” too, eh?”
>>>> Please refer me to the post wherein I called you stupid.<<<
But the BoM can't handle the same standard that is applied to the Bible.
Heck, it can't even stand up to the LATER pronouncements from JS!
I suggest a movie to calm down...
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