Finding Truth in the “Would Not Vote for a Mormon” Polls

RomneyExperience.com ^ | 7/26/07

[tantiboh]

Democratic political consultant Mark Mellman has a very good piece up today at The Hill on the baffling and illegitimate opposition among voters to Mitt Romney due to his religion. I liked his closing paragraphs:

In July of 1958, 24 percent of respondents told Gallup they would not vote for a Catholic for president, almost identical to Gallup’s reading on Mormons today. Two years later, John F. Kennedy became the first Catholic to assume the oath of office. Within eight months, the number refusing to vote for a Catholic was cut almost in half.

[snip]

Mellman also discusses an interesting poll he helped construct, in which the pollsters asked half of their respondents whether they would support a candidate with certain characteristics, and asked the other half about another candidate with the exact same characteristics, with one difference. The first candidate was Baptist, the second candidate was Mormon. The Baptist had a huge advantage over the Mormon candidate, by about 20 points.

[snip]

However, more recent polls have attempted to fix the anonymity problem. A recent Time Magazine poll (read the original report here), for example, got to the heart of the question by asking respondents if they are less likely to vote for Mitt Romney specifically because he is a Mormon. The result is not as bad as some reporting on the poll has suggested. For example, while 30% of Republicans say they are less likely to vote for Romney because of his religion, fully 15% of other Republicans say that characteristic makes them more likely to vote for him. And while many have reported the finding that 23% of Republicans are “worried” by Romney’s Mormonism, the more important (but less-reported) number is that 73% say they hold no such reservations...

[aMorePerfectUnion]

>>>>There is a difference between picking someone for a cabinet without regard to their religious preference... and starting out with their religious preference.

“What is the difference?”

If you do not know the difference, I am thankful someone
else will be appointing the Cabinet!

ampu

[restornu]

that is the way I understood it, why faultfind when we always have the choice to see the positive it it not true it matter not that Jesus loves all of the children...

Would it not best to shake that spirit that always has one looking at the glass half emply!

[restornu]

You just can't abide by your own truce call. Can you?

You guy's are a hoot.

Kindly explain your unkind remark?

[Rameumptom]

I know the difference.

I just wanted to see your flips and twists explaining how Reagan didn't use a religious litmus test as criteria when he picked his cabinet but that you still favor using a religious litmus test.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“I know the difference.

I just wanted to see your flips and twists explaining how Reagan didn’t use a religious litmus test as criteria when he picked his cabinet but that you still favor using a religious litmus test.”

I would explain the difference between voting for a mormon
for POTUS and a sitting POTUS making appointments, but
I fear the distinction would be lost.

BTW, I won’t be voting for anyone in a cult for POTUS...
joining 30-61% of Americans across the board, regardless
of age, gender, race, party or religion, who say they
will not vote for a mormon. An incredible, amazing
statistic.

best,
ampu

[colorcountry]

There was nothing at the link to the site that suggested the early fathers believed in the same esoteric rites of Mormonism. There simply is no proof of that.

That some early Christians might have believed in ritual and esoterics really isn’t in dispute. Many of them did some pretty outlandish things to heighten their spirituality. Christ never said we must do those things. EVER!

You must remember also, we do not view early fathers as Prophetic in the way that you hold Gordon B. Hinckley or Joseph Smith. If Origen practice plural marriage and said God told him to do it, we would all be very alarmed. Not many people except the extremely sexualized (a looking for an excuse) would follow that practice.

Early Christians had some good, correct and valuable understandings and teachings, and they had erroneous beliefs. It is as simple as that. In no way are we admonished to follow whatever practices they might have dreamed-up or been made privy to.

The practices of Mormon Temple Ceremonies have morphed continuously. You don’t even perform, or take part in, the same ceremonies, oaths and ordinances that your parents did.

I really don’t see what the whole connection is between the early fathers and Mormon secret rites.....the Apologist at FAIR are obviously grasping, trying to maintain hold on the delicate cord that they believe links them to something.....anything. They’d better get ready to hold their breaths for a long, long time.

[Rameumptom]

>>I would explain the difference between voting for a mormon for POTUS and a sitting POTUS making appointments, but I fear the distinction would be lost.

Give it a go. Enlighten me.

>>>An incredible, amazing statistic.

Which uncannily matches the statistic in this same survey of those who refuse to vote for a "minister". Other surveys have broken down the "I would not vote for a Mormon" crowd and they are overwhelmingly Democrat. But hey, if you are fine standing with DEMs and Libs on the issue that's your perogative.

[restornu]

wow I got them on just in time.......

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“Enlighten me.”

If only it were so easy...

Voters are not employers and not subject to non-discrimination
laws (as the founders structured the vote).

POTUS is bound by laws.

Have you viewed the Rasmussen study? The lowest percentage
that says they will not vote for a mormon is 30% for every
other category of human, it goes up. Apparently I’ll be
standing with every category, age, gender, race, political
affiliation, etc.

My question is, after hundreds of millions of puff PR
by the CLDS, why is this number stuck in that range???

best,
ampu

[colorcountry]

They aren’t going to save you resty. Only Christ can.

[Rameumptom]

When Reagan was acting as the representative of the people who voted for him he did not use a religious litmus test. He over-represented mormons in government positions. IOW, he was not motivated by employer anti-discrimination laws or he would not have gone way over the top for just this one category which would have a discriminatory effect on other classes of citizen. Do you trust Reagan’s judgement on the issue or not?

BTW, perhaps you could quote the law that says the POTUS has to pick a certain number of a certain class, race or religion of person on his personal cabinet?

[restornu]

There you go again putting words where they don’t belong and the hip boots help me wade through this doo doo

[FatherofFive]

Jesus Christ posseses all qualities all the Father. (If you disagree then please describe a quality that he does not have which God the Father has).

Well, let’s start with this one: God the Father, described as a spirit by Jesus, cannot be seen.

"And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live." Ex. 33:20

"Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the blight which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen." 1 Tim. 6:16

So God is spirit and can’t be seen. Jesus was human and was seen by many.

Therefore, God the Father has always been God, he has always been omniscient, divine, all powerful, etc.

OK, let’s stay with this point. This statement is consistent with the Moroni and Mormon verses I cited:

"I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; but he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity" (Moroni 8:18).

"For do we not read that God is the same yesterday, today and forever, and in him there is no variableness, neither shadow of changing? And now, if ye have imagined up unto yourselves a god who doth vary, and in whom there is shadow of changing, then ye have imagined up unto yourselves a god who is not a God of miracles" (Mormon 9:9-10).

Changing from spirit God to mortal must be considered at least a shadow of changing, don’t you think?

In the Ostler piece, which I thought expressed your beliefs, he tries to reconcile the unchanging and changing nature of God by redefining God as “Godhead.” To quote – “Thus, when the scriptures say that "God is from everlasting to everlasting the same unchangeable God," it means that the Godhead has always manifested all the essential properties of godhood (whatever they may be), but the individual divine persons may not always have possessed all the properties of godhood individually. In other words, there was a time when the Father took on himself mortality just as there was a time when the Son became mortal, but there was a Godhead before, during, and after that time.”

Since you don’t believe that – it is silly and a gross distortion of the clear words of scripture – how do you reconcile the BOM unchanging God the Father with a KFD changing God the Father?

[colorcountry]

All I meant resty, is why do you need waders when you are....

[nowandlater]

Sorry, taking time off today.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Rampy,
You seem upset today. I hope things turn for the better.

OK, I do not believe you are clear on the difference
between quotas and NON DISCRIMINATION based on a
person’s religious affiliation.

Reagan (to our knowledge) did not have it as his
goal to overrepresent mormons. Perhaps it was just
that there were more qualified mormon candidates -
in other words, that mormons were overrepresented
in the pool of qualified candidates?

What an employer cannot do is discriminate and turn
down a candidate because he is a mormon, for instance.

A voter can vote which ever way he or she wants based
on hair color, political view, religion, etc.

That is the difference.

BTW, Reagan served very well. That doesn’t make him
an expert on mormonism!

best,
ampu

[FatherofFive]

That’s fine. I forgot to say thanks for asking for prayers for those poor folks up in Mn, and I’ll add prayers for our soldiers in harm’s way across the globe.

[colorcountry]

Try this. It will protect you from any doo-doo you might encounter

[Elsie]

Last I checked none of these men were what I would call "Mormon apologetics" or spammers.

True: they're just men - NOT speaking for the Lord. Fallible, VERY fallible; just like our ex-Living Prophets (I guess that means dead) when THEY were running off at the mouth, giving their OPINIONS: none of which do we EVER consider SCRIPTURE!! (Unless someone else managed to put it to paper and CALL it scripture.)

--MormonDude

[Elsie]

that is the way I understood it, why faultfind when we always have the choice to see

the positive it it not true it matter not that Jesus loves all of the children...

Would it not best to shake that spirit that always has one looking at the glass half emply!

			Bliss Ninny doesn't understand why people just can't get along. While it is entirely unintentional, Bliss Ninny's utterly vacuous comments can drive the more pugnacious Warriors into a frenzy of aggression. Often in the heat of battle Bliss Ninny will discuss her cat.