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.
Very classy.
Care to comment on the virtues of Catholic cult? What makes it wonderful and free of criticism?
Care to comment on the virtues of Catholic cult? What makes it wonderful and free of criticism?Oh, that's easy. It was the sword of Constantine, the 13th Apostle as he styled himself. He gathered the councils that issued the creeds and canons and organized Christianity, and Christians, according to the requirements of the Roman state. Julian the (so-called) Apostate later tried to reverse Constantine's reforms. Ironically, Julian is responsible for the triumph of the orthodox. Constantine favoured the Arians and tended to persecute the orthodox. Julian was convinced that by allowing the orthodox to return to civic life that the Christian communities would cut themselves to pieces in factional strife, which the Christians of that era tended to do. Conclusion: Christianity as we know it today is a state enterprise. The canons, the creeds, these are the results of emperors trying to save the Christians from themselves. Well, that's one interpretation anyway.
Professor, you contradicted yourself with such aplumb: “Of the 2 of us, TG and I, I am the only one of us posting on-topic, the only one of us who has anything intelligent to contribute to this thread. Nor do I insult others ...” Um, Professor, you’re being an insulting prick with that comment. Did you imagine Freepers would not comprehend the insult? [prick = little nettle]
Professor, you contradicted yourself with such aplumb: “Of the 2 of us, TG and I, I am the only one of us posting on-topic, the only one of us who has anything intelligent to contribute to this thread. Nor do I insult others ...” Um, Professor, you’re being an insulting prick with that comment. Did you imagine Freepers would not comprehend the insult? [prick = little nettle]Are you baiting me now too? I'm not sure, because I'm not following you. For example: Did you mean aplomb, or did you mean "with a plumb"?
Hey, let's do get back to the subject ... I'm sure nowandlater will be happier. I'll take a sip of my Ruby Port and await the next post. Here's to ya ...
Hey, let's do get back to the subject ...Yuh-huh. And maybe you should ease up on the port a little bit. And stop issuing checks that you cannot cash, i.e. trying to get people who are doing nothing wrong banned etc.
Checks I cannot cash? Nice try, but off topic. Care to try again? I’m sure nowanadlater would be overjoyed to have a post addressed to him/her.
Care to try again?How about this. Were we to compare cults, I think I would be far more comfortable voting for a Mormon than a Catholic. Why: because Mormons have no history of killing Jews, or of accusing Jews of murdering their Lord etc. Constantine and his successors--the Christian emperors of the Byzantine era, the architects of the Orthodox faith--persecuted Jews so effectively that the Jewish communities of Egypt and Anatolia greeted their Arab cousins as liberators--dimmitude was preferred to life in the Christian empire. In the West the Jews fared even worse: massacres, expulsions, The Reconquista, The Inquisition, exclusion from the city life, from the guilds, ghetto life etc., etc.
It takes all kinds to make a nation like ours (the U.S. I mean). [I think nowandlater is busy on another Romney thread. He’ll catch up, eventually.]
It takes all kinds to make a nation like ours (the U.S. I mean).Indeed. So you would be comfortable voting for a Mormon (provided that other ideological and policy conditions were met etc.)?
It doesn’t appear ‘on topic’ means the same to all posters. You appear needy, to go back and try a baiting to Turret Gunner again (reaching back to post #401 when we’re well into further topical exchanges). Why? Can’t you leave him be? Do you need the needling game to amuse you? If he did contact the Admin Mod about your heckling, you’re risking banning to play a silly game. Was your slur against his military service a point of guilt you feel you must absolve somehow by seeking to bait him into reacting to you? Please don’t do that.
Actually, if I thought Romney could get elected and Fred Thompson dosen’t end up running, I would have voted for Oven Mitt if for no other reason than his his family values and moderate conservatism.
It doesn’t appear ‘on topic’ means the same to all posters. You appear needy, to go back and try a baiting to Turret Gunner again (reaching back to post #401 when we’re well into further topical exchanges). Why? Can’t you leave him be? Do you need the needling game to amuse you? If he did contact the Admin Mod about your heckling, you’re risking banning to play a silly game. Was your slur against his military service a point of guilt you feel you must absolve somehow by seeking to bait him into reacting to you? Please don’t do that.Fascinating. You snapped out of your bubbly incoherence and assumed that canting, hectoring tone again. As I wrote before, you, or he, or anyone who wants to, may contact the moderator about me at any time, and about any issue, and with my blessing, because I am not doing anything wrong. As long as I play by the rules--and I am--I am as free as anyone else here to participate.
Suit yourself, professor. BTW, Ruby Port is not a ‘bubbly’ beverage; has a texture and flavor similar to the Jewish holiday wine, Mogen David, I drank as a young man in my grandparent’s home.
Fascinating thread so far!
Only several? Methinks you doth underestimate much. ;)
re: 429
“Think we can safely say that it did not work.”
>>>> For once you are right — the reason being that I haven’t tried it — until now.. I thought that perhaps you might have wised up, and decided to get off my back and leave me alone. How very fooloish of me.<<<
Ruby Port is not a ‘bubbly’ beverageGranted. I was referring to your manner, not your beverage. You seem to have returned to your incoherent bubbliness, BTW, which I much prefer to your schoolmarm pose.
How very fooloish of me.Yes. Indeed. And about a lot of things. And I could add a number of other adjectives besides foolish, but why bother? Your behavior is the best testimony of your character and veracity. So: now that that's settled, may we return to the topic of this thread?
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