The Missionaries came over today and helped my husband paint the garage. Those fine young men deserve our respect. I don’t like it when people put them down. I am grateful for their service, love and sacrifice."
I would be the last to say there are no positive elements to the Mormon way of life. But I have also "witnessed" many corrosive effects (and why should Mormon "witnesses" be any more important than "gentile witnesses" including myself and others who have noted the same things? Unless of course you believe Mormons are SUPERIOR to other Christians?????????????).
Generically, what I have witnessed multiple times in business and political situations is that Mormons are clannish and nepotistic within the Church, believing they have a greater right to money and power than others (getting their planet early). One example is Harry Reid. Another was a Temple Mormon I was involved with in a deal worth thirty million, who I am now about to report to the IRS for tax evasion. Another tried to trump up fraud charges against a CPA I know to hide embezzlement within a company. My boss is a Jack Mormon atheist who left the church because of inconsistencies. Then there is Joseph Smith himself and his Kirtland bank. I have more examples, but you get the idea - I have no trust of Mormons in positions of power.
These types of problems haven't been noted only by me, but also by a number of people on this very thread who lived in predominantly Mormon communities. They stem not from the everyday Mormon concepts of clean living, but from doctrinal problems deep within the theology that separates Mormons distinctly from Christian Churches. If you were able to excise the Joseph Smith prophecies from your church, becoming only a Christian Denomination, you would have a body with commendable attributes and I would applaud you. But I suspect that will not happen.
Here is where you will call me a bigot for not putting Mormons on an equal footing with everyone else. But that is sad logic indeed because your Religion is founded at its core on the idea that every other Christian and Jew is an apostate going to hell ( see here: http://www.mrm.org/topics/rebuttals-rejoinders/response-latter-day-saints-who-say-we-never-criticize-christian-churches ) In other words, your religion is verrrry bigoted against Gentiles.
So, I am very sorry that your religion is founded on demonstrably false chicanery by Joseph Smith, but the documentation is quite irrefutable. As phony as a $3 dollar bill signed by Joseph Smith, one might say.
I am also sorry that many Christians and Jews, myself included, will not vote for Mitt Romney because we view these doctrinal problems as rising well beyond the level of petty squabbling to the point where our worldviews are disjoint. But that is the reality of the situation and it would not be truthful to deny what is as clear as day. I will never vote for someone who believes they are on the path to becoming God, and this is just a stepping stone.