The Mormon Advantage

Townhall.com ^ | 4/5/2007 | Maggie Gallagher

[Utah Girl]

Mitt Romney is riding high this week after his victory in "the first primary," which consists of raising cold, hard cash to compete: more than $20 million in the first quarter, $5 million more than his closest contender, Rudy "Lay off my wife!" Giuliani. John McCain came in a lackluster third with $12.5 million.

Romney's campaign benefited from two distinct donor networks, according to media accounts: Wall Street and Mormons. GOP front-runner Rudy, struggling with one of those weird media freak shows erupting around his wife, Judith (her alleged participation in future Cabinet meetings and former puppy killings), must be a little envious on both counts.

Why is it that all the Dem candidates are still married to their first spouse, while among the current crop of leading GOP contenders, the only guy with just one wife is the Mormon?

Truth is, I don't think this is just an accident. There's something about Mormons the rest of us ought to pay attention to: Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints do much better than almost any other faith group at sustaining a marriage culture -- and they do this while participating fully and successfully in modern life. Utah is above the national average in both household income and the proportion of adults who are college graduates.

[nowandlater]

Sure it is politics. While Mitt is not the best politician (his Dad was better), Mitt does keep his promises. If you will look at he promised in the past for any given term, he will deliver. So if he is saying he will be NRA friendly, then will be. It must irk people to see him be a politician, but all politician do this and he is in no special class. It is just that others are very skeptical of him because they don’t know. And I can see your point very clearly to be wary about that.

[TAdams8591]

"He has been a supporter of the liberal agenda for decades."

Romney's held some liberal positions for decades, but he was only in office for four years. He has now changed those more liberal positions and is running on a conservative platform. Is he sincere? I can't say for certain, but after all the brouhaha, he simply cannot revert back to his more liberal positions. He would lose all credibility.

Some of his actions as governor, must be viewed in the context of the political situation in Massachusetts. The legislature was 85% Democrat. I have to admire that he pursued the governorship under those circumstances. It was bold and brave. Furthermore, that he was able to achieve anything at all, in such a situation, is a testament to his political acumen and fortitude. I would urge you to read Unmarked Package's homepage, which tells the rest of the story, the details many of his strongest detractor's like to omit.

I would feel better about Mitt Romney if he were a more proven conservative on the social issues. But I have to consider him in the context of other candidates who are also seeking the presidency. In my opinion, he is the only person running on a conservative platform, who can win the R nomination thereby defeating Giuliani running on a Liberal platform and also defeat the Democrat nominee, who ever it will be.

And I do like his strong family and faithfulness to his wife and his apparently clean personal life. He is a GOOD example that is sorely needed in our nation and our world. Our leaders must have this strong sense from their powerful and public positions, they must be a good example to those they govern, and it is more, not less incumbent upon them.

[truth_seeker]

“However, non-Mormons are very much forced into a very uncomfortable environment socially.”

I have big doubts about that claim. I suppose if some non-mormon has a chip on their shoulder they can provoke issues.

But every town of any size has non-mormon churches.

The Catholic cathedral in SLC is often mistaken for the mormon church—it is really big.

When it comes to good works, mormons walk the walk. If you are in Utah, down and out, mormon or non-mormon, the mormons help you.

[George W. Bush]

Great posts there.

And welcome to FreeRepublic.

[nowandlater]

“Sorry - Martin Luther never claimed to be a prophet. Joseph Smith did. Do you know the Biblical qualifications of a Prophet of God? 100% accurate 100% of the time. If a man claims to be a Prophet and is found to be inaccurate even once when speaking in God’s authority - he is a false Prophet.”

Buzz...wrong answer! Moses messed up; you know the water thing in the deseret. Some other Biblical prophets made prophesies that didn’t come to past.

[George W. Bush]

jatopilot: “when you pose researched facts to a Mormon, the first thing they will do is label you anti-mormon. They will never admit something that their leaders did was wrong, or admit that any doctrinal teaching is wrong. They are trained to not question anything, or they may be called Apostate.”

Artemis Webb: I’m a Catholic.

And I'm a Baptist of the rather Calvinistic flavor. I certainly have a long posting history here of being both anti-Catholic and anti-Mormon.

But that is theology, not politics.

If Romney were an extremely devout Mormon or had tried to implement anything particularly favorable to Mormonism as governor, I would have a problem with him. But he is moderate in religion, very much like most U.S. presidents have been toward their religion as it applies to their public life and policy goals.

I have no problem voting for Romney any more than I have any problem with the five Catholics the GOP has put on the Supreme Court (something potentially far more powerful and durable than electing a Catholic as a president). The only Catholic on the Court who I have a problem with is Kennedy, who claimed to be more Catholic than the pope during his confirmation hearings but who thumbs his nose at the pope constantly and stabs the GOP in the back at every opportunity. Notice, Kennedy is the only one of the five Catholics on the Court who emphasized how Catholic he was and then went on to demonstrate how anti-Catholic his jurisprudence really was.

I'm not supporting Romney in the primaries, not unless he can get a lot more convincing that he understands the "shall not infringe" clause in the Second, something any Harvard lawyer understands perfectly well. And I think he's made great progress in moving toward a pro-life position, particularly on the embryonic research issue but I'd still like to hear more from him. But I won't slam any doors on him yet either. Especially over theology. I disagree with plenty of Protestants on theology as well. But on pro-life, pro-family and pro-RKBA issues, we do need to hear more clear and sincere statements from Romney if he wants the full support of the conservative base.

[George W. Bush]

So if he is saying he will be NRA friendly, then will be.

Saying he will sign an AWB bill is not friendly.

He needs to convince us that he "shall not infringe".

He is a Harvard lawyer. I think he's read the Second a couple of times.

If he wants to receive the warm support of gunowners, he needs to do this. We can overlook his signing of the MA AWB and recognize that he extracted some gun rights from an 80% Dim legislature. The NRA recognizes this. But we don't like it. And he is running for national office.

"Shall not infringe" is a lot more important than whether he has ever gone hunting. I will be very suspicious of him if he pulls a Kerry camo hunting expedition but maintains his current stance on assault weapons.

We have never fully trusted Bush II on the AWB issue. We voted for him, knowing we had a GOP congress to quell any gungrabbing. And they did. They also extended legal protection to our gun manufacturers. While we might be concerned that Bush would sign a Dim AWB bill now, doing so would probably cause him to leave office with approval ratings under 10%. And many GOP congresscritters would back away from him like he was radioactive, just out of fear of the voters.

The time of scared soccer moms has passed. The era of CCW has dawned. Romney needs to follow the will of the people, as expressed in their states. He needs to respect that and affirm it. He doesn't even have to run from his record as a governor of a very liberal state but he needs to be a lot more specific and convincing on the gun issue if he expects to receive warm support from RKBA folk. Otherwise, we cannot really trust him fully with a Dim-majority congress.

[nowandlater]

Well, I see his dilemna. If pledges to support the NRA agenda 100%, then he will be seen as insincere, and if he maintains his stance then he will be seen as not good enough. It’s crazy, but he can’t win either way, because his conservatives have lambasted him for changing his position.

[roscommon]

“Romney’s held some liberal positions for decades...”

Most Mormons I know who graduated from Harvard firmly reside in the liberal/progressive camp. Cambridge just has that affect on people.

Romney’s MBA/Law degrees from Harvard greatly impress me, but also leaves me a bit worried. He liked Cambridge so much he never left!

I sure wish he would alter his stance on immigration. I would vote for him in the primary in a second if he came down solid on that one issue.

[roscommon]

“The Catholic cathedral in SLC is often mistaken for the mormon church—it is really big.”

Didn’t the LDS church donate a large donation to help build the Catholic cathedral in SLC?

[nowandlater]

Well, thank you for the response. Quite fascinating.

Mormonism actually is Henotheistic in theory (which has features of both Polytheism and Monotheism) and Monotheistic in worship.

Mormons take the “Let us” part and “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” literally. “He” is not a correct translation of the Hebrew in this text.

Genesis 1:26-27
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

Also, Elohim
“the word Elohim is the masculine plural of a feminine noun, used as a singular.” see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elohim. That interpretation of Elohim in the Mormon view that God is actually heavenly parents consisting of a Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother working as one. Well, just scratched the surface here with theology. Our thoughts on Jesus Christ/Jehovah are even deeper and more fleshed, in case you were wondering.

[nowandlater]

Yeah sure, helping out across faiths without expecting anything in return is common. The LDS church actually gave a few thousand to Martin Luther King’s family to help rebuild his church in Atlanta.

[George W. Bush]

Well, I see his dilemna. If pledges to support the NRA agenda 100%, then he will be seen as insincere, and if he maintains his stance then he will be seen as not good enough. It’s crazy, but he can’t win either way, because his conservatives have lambasted him for changing his position.

Not at all true. I am not disingenuously placing him in a no-win position on guns (or gays or abortion).

He could easily explain that Massachusetts is a very liberal state with an 80% Dim legislature and that he chose to extract some increase in other gun rights there in exchange for signing the bill which would have suffered an legislative override if he had vetoed it. He did have some support for doing this from MA hunting groups and the NRA has not made a point of it. He did have lukewarm NRA support for his run in MA and they have wisely not disavowed him. Yet.

Romney could then explain that the overwhelming majority of states have now granted CCW rights to their citizens and have done so with good results and very few drawbacks. He could explain the need for self-defense for women or the elderly who might otherwise be raped or murdered if they were unarmed because the police cannot always be present to protect them. He could explain that storeowners and employees should be allowed to protect themselves if they believe a robber might kill them even if they cooperate. He could say that MA's Dim legislature might have the right to legislatively restrict assault weapons currently but that he saw no role for the federal government to violate any portion of the Second's 'shall not infringe' clause. He could indicate that he had no interest in any legislation that restricted any gun rights, barring a major incident of, for instance, gangs using fully automatic weapons to commit crimes or terrorist elements taking advantage of our laws but that even those unlikely events would not affect the right to self-defense that is enshrined in the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights and he could conjoin this by saying he could explain that he disagreed with the attempts to seize weapons during the Katrina crisis and call it unjustified and unlawful. He could explain that the D.C. court's recent ruling had challenged the reigning orthodoxy on gun ownership and that he agreed with their ruling and the thrust of their legal argument.

Now, if I can make a sound and non-radical argument that easily for the Second on Mitt's behalf, then why can't he say the same thing or something even better? He is a Harvard lawyer and we know he's unquestionably intelligent.

If he wants the gun vote (and he says he does), he has to be convincing. Not radically pro-gun. But solidly committed to a position he can't back away from. Ever.

Again, I'm not asking the man to walk the plank. And I'm shopping for a candidate. But he needs to do and say more on the gun issue and the social conservative issues. And he might want to consider doing it before Fred Thompson swoops down on him. I'll be blunt, while his campaign's mention of his teenage rabbit hunting and a few governors' association hunts was okay with me, it doesn't move me any more than Kerry or Xlinton sneaking around with a shotgun to shoot some pen-raised game although they score a few points for having been just a bit more honest about it than they actually had to be. However, it simply will not do for him to embark on some goofy hunting safari like Kerry did, apparently the notion of gun rights commonly held among the Massachusetts elite. Romney needs to break out of his Massachusetts mentality and become a conservative national candidate.

There is a long record, in both parties, of candidates switching positions from the ones that got them elected in the state to the opposite position when they ran for national office, especially when running for president. It is allowed in both parties. Romney has a window of opportunity here, probably up until fall or until Thompson enters the race, to declare himself plainly and do a lot of good for his campaign and throw down the gauntlets on the Second to Giuliani and McStain. And I won't even discuss why McStain is so unacceptable a candidate, it's well-known here already.

BTW, I would like to be able to support a Romney-Thompson or Thompson-Romney ticket. But I need for Romney to declare himself more firmly for the positions of our platform on these issues.

In either party, if you want the base to love you, then embrace the party platform. And Romney says he is after the support of the conservative base. Fine. Then it's time for him to support the party base first.

[sevenbak]

You entirely missed the point. Bush trusts a Mormon with such a place on his Cabinet. You don’t, big deal.

[AnalogReigns]

>>Mormonism like any other non-Christian religion

Who made you the arbiter of my soul?

Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. (Matt. 5:1-5)

For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.(2 Peter 1:16)

I am not "the arbiter of your soul," and never claimed to be. However, the idea that Christians should never use their powers of critical thinking and yes, judgment (or GOOD judgment) otherwise known as common sense, is one of the worst perversions of holy scripture common today.

There's the full passage above, part of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Note, in comparing the the "log" and the "speck" Jesus didn't say ignore them, rather He said for the judgmental person to remove the log first...then to "see clearly." What does this mean? To never make any judgments or decisions? That would be the death of any Christian beliefs at all--as all of us must make decisions on what is true and what to believe.

No. Think of the context. Jesus was preaching to people who, while following a definitely, without-question, God-revealed religion, had gone bad. How? Through a loveless legalistic following after law, that is doing good things, as the basis of their salvation. Read the gospels...what exactly was wrong the the Pharisees of the day?

They knew God's word (and it was definitely God's word...no questionable revelations to questionable persons of questionable character) and they FOLLOWED it, with all their might. But what was wrong? There was no faith in this, and they were trusting not God, and His mercy, but their own goodness for their salvation. The looked at God as a paymaster...someone who, when they died would OWE it to them, due to their good deeds, to let them into heaven.

Such an attitude is not that of biblical faith. God owes us nothing but death--as Jesus' death proved. However, just as God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, chose to raise Jesus from the grave, so too the Trinity chose, before all time, to grant us mercy--through faith Jesus Christ, and His good works. Such a faith allows us to freely live a life of good deeds...NOT seeking to EARN God's favor, rather, doing good for the sake of love.

The 2nd verse shows that St. Peter knew of some religions based on "cleverly devised myths," and Christianity was based on solid eyewitnesses. It is the carefully considered judgment (based on good judgment, or common sense, not the bad legalistic "judgmentalism" condemned by Jesus) of the thinkers of ALL major Christian groups--we whose distinct beliefs go back for many hundreds of years, all the way back to the eyewitnesses who wrote the scriptures, not to the 1830s--that LDS doctrine is so far from the Bible, with its own new bible-contradicting "revelation," that it is no longer Christianity. Christians of all kinds share in common beliefs about the Trinity, the nature of Jesus, human nature, heaven and hell, the atonement, marriage etc. etc. all of which in Mormon doctrine are fundamentally different from all other Christian groups. So either, all other Churches are "an abomination" as polygamist J. Smith (30+ wives?) said, and your 175 year old group is right, or, Christianity is right. A burning feeling inside doesn't matter... It cannot go both ways.

As to your soul? You are responsible for your own choices.

[nowandlater]

Very solid points. I think with 10 months left in the Primary, that we may see something happen in that regard.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Aluwid,
My experience with interacting with mormon posters here is usually the same. If I quote actual mormon writings, they are “out of context”. Perhaps it would clarify things if you would answer the following questions forthrightly and then our understanding would be based on your actual expression in words, updated for this current century.

1. Do you believe you can be a “god” of your own world someday? [the Bible, does not teach this]

2. Do you believe Jesus Christ was created? [the Bible teaches He existed eternally and was not created]

3. Do you believe Christ’s atonement for sin on the cross was completely sufficient to pay for your sins and to ensure you will have eternal life - or do you believe you have to perform works or other acts to achieve your salvation?

I think that would be a good starting place. Three simple questions, with a chance for you to explain without me quoting any of your leaders (including your founder) or my habit of quoting from mormon writings.

best,
ampu

[Rameumptom]

Howdy AWM,

Mormonism is a cult in the same sense as Tertullain, Origen, Justin Martyr (etc. etc.) and other early Christians whose beliefs about Doctrines mirror ours. Ours mirrors theirs. Actually the best way to say it is Mormons and early Christian beliefs mirror the Truth, IMO.

Restoring_the_Ancient_Church

[TAdams8591]

Just for the record, that was not my quote but a quote of another poster. Romney has been liberal on some(but not ALL) issues but is moving rightward.

I suggest we get some conservatives in Romney's camp whispering in his ear on those particular issues.