Posted on 12/12/2007 8:13:49 PM PST by dano1
Voters will reject attacks on his Mormon faith, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Wednesday in response to a question raised about his beliefs by rival Mike Huckabee.
"I think attacking someone's religion is really going too far. It's just not the American way and I think people will reject that," Romney told NBC's "Today Show" about Huckabee's asking whether Mormons believe Jesus and the devil are brothers.
"That's been something that's leveled at our church over many, many years," Romney said of the comment made by Huckabee in an article to be published Sunday in The New York Times magazine found here.
Huckabee said he apologized to Romney for the comment after Wednesday's Republican presidential debate in Iowa. "I said, 'I would never try, ever to try to somehow pick out some point of your faith and make it an issue,' and I wouldn't," Huckabee said to CNN.
The former Arkansas governor also said he told Romney that he didn't "think your being a Mormon ought to make you more or less qualified for being a president" and that Romney was "gracious."
Romney's campaign said the apology was accepted.
Huckabee told the cable news channel his question about Jesus and the devil wasn't intended "to create something — I never thought it would make the story." He said it came up because the New York Times interviewer "was telling me things about the Mormon faith."
The newspaper's lengthy profile of Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister who is surging in popularity among voters in Iowa as well as nationally, notes the name of former Iowa front-runner Romney went unmentioned in the interview.
Huckabee, described as calling himself the only Republican candidate with a degree in theology, was asked if he considered Mormonism a cult or a religion. He answered, "I think it's a religion. I really don't know much about it."
Then, the author of the article, Zev Chafets, wrote, "I was about to jot down this piece of boilerplate when Huckabee surprised me with a question of his own: 'Don't Mormons,' he asked in an innocent voice, 'believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?'"
Romney said on the "Today Show" that he has "the highest respect for Mike Huckabee and I'm certainly not going to go after him. ... I think he's a good man and he's trying to do the best that he can."
Voters, Romney said, are not going to choose a president "based upon their faith or what church they go to." The former leader of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and former governor of Massachusetts said again Wednesday he would not distance himself from his faith.
When asked why he mentioned the word "Mormon" only once during his Dec. 6 speech on "Faith in America," Romney said, "actually we prefer the name, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mormon used to be a nickname and I don't use it a lot."
Huckabee's wasn't the only comment made about Mormonism to surface after Romney's speech at the George H.W. Bush Library and Museum in College Station, Texas, that was intended to confront concerns about his membership in the LDS Church. On Dec. 7, Lawrence O'Donnell, a panelist on "The McLaughlin Group," said Romney didn't take advantage in his speech of the "opportunity to distance himself from the evils of his religion," calling the faith "racist" and "ridiculous."
Neither the LDS Church nor Romney have responded to O'Donnell's statements. The LDS Church did issue a statement earlier in the week in response to Huckabee's question about Jesus and the devil.
"We believe, as other Christians believe and as Paul wrote, that God is the Father of all. That means that all beings were created by God and are His spirit children. Christ, on the other hand, was the only begotten in the flesh and we worship Him as the Son of God and the Savior of mankind. Satan is the exact opposite of who Christ is and what He stands for," the LDS Church statement read.
For a press that talks a whole lot about ‘Seperation of Church and State’, they sure bring up the two alot during a political campaign.
example:http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,316253,00.html
WALLACE: Let's turn to immigration, because you put out a new immigration plan this week. You called for building...
HUCKABEE: Yes.
WALLACE: ... a border fence, for cracking down on employers, for telling illegals to go home.
But last year in an interview, you said something somewhat different. You said this, "I think that the rational approach is to find a way to give people a pathway to citizenship."
Governor, in your new plan, the only path is to go home and to get on the back of the line, which, of course, would mean years of waiting. Why the change?
HUCKABEE: Well, I don't think there's an inconsistency. When I said a pathway, I didn't say what the pathway was.
I now believe that the only thing the American people are going to accept — and, frankly, the only thing that really makes sense — is a pathway that sends people back to the starting point.
But this idea of the waiting years — no, I don't agree with that. In fact, look, if we can get a credit card application done within hours, if we can get passports done within days, if we can transact business over the Internet any place in the world within seconds, do a background check instantaneously — it's our government that has failed and is dysfunctional.
It shouldn't take years to get a work permit to come here and pick lettuce. So part of the plan that I have is that we seal the borders. You don't have amnesty and sanctuary cities. You do have a pathway that gets you back home.
But that pathway to get back here legally doesn't take years. It would take days, maybe weeks, and then people could come back in the workforce.
Watch it Willied he doesn't mean what he says he does.
Neither man is qualified for the job.
Well isn't that special.
He said it came up because the New York Times interviewer "was telling me things about the Mormon faith."
So it is the interviewers fault.
Sorry folks, but I for one am sick and tired of politicians who blame everyone else for everything rather then taking responsibility for their own actions and words.
And I am also tired of policitians who think we are STUPID. Evidently Huckster thinks we are stupid. He attempted to denigrate an opponent by castigating his religion, and then turns around and says it was the interviewers fault.
Shades of Hitlery Klinton!
Not that it has any bearing on the presidential race, but is it true or is it not? I'll ask the question of our Mormon fellow freepers.
Jason
I belong to an Evangelical Church, and I’ve never heard anyone talk about Mormans before - I guess there aren’t too many here in the east ...
Excellent :)
Many mormons out this direction. I did a quick google search and sure enough, Jesus was the first created and Satan was the second, making them brothers, but according to mormon doctrine, we were all created as spirit babies, so we’re all brothers, Jesus and Satan included.
Directing the question outward to other freepers.
So the answer to Huckabee’s question is YES. Why are you mormon folk having a difficult time admitting this?
This all just seems like posturing and political-grand-standing by both candidates.
The NYT tried to make us think McNuts was our guy. That didn't fly so then they tried RinoRudy. We didn't bite so they switched to RinoMitt. Since that failed too, they'll now try Huckster.
All part of the lefts plan to elect queen Hillary.
We don't. As you have found out, we all are brothers and sisters. Ask any Mormon. It is those that are not Mormons who keep asking the question and never search for the answer.
Political posturing? Romney is the only one getting attacked for his Mormonism and Huckabee knew exactly what he was doing when he did it.
Romney's gracefulness is amazing....I don't think I could have been so pleasant with Huckabee.
Bingo. They only talk about it when it suits their politics.
As for Huckabee, if he is the best candidate that we can field that is supposed to be christian, I will move over and become a Mormon.
"Who will redeem the earth, who will go forth and make the sacrifice for the earth and all things it contains?" The Eldest Son said: "Here am I"; and then he added, "Send me." But the second one, which was "Lucifer, Son of the Morning," said, "Lord, here am I, send me, I will redeem every son and daughter of Adam and Eve that lives on the earth, or that ever goes on the earth."
--Brigham Young, Discourses of Brigham Young, pp.53-54.
"The appointment of Jesus to be the savior of the world was contested by one of the other sons of God. He was called Lucifer, son of the morning. Haughty, ambitious, and covetous of power and glory, this spirit-brother of Jesus desperately tried to become the Savior of mankind."
--Milton R. Hunter, The Gospel Through the Ages, p. 15.
But we all know you Dane. Like the Huckster, you can't erase your well-known record as FR's biggest supporter of open borders and amnesty for illegals.
Which is, of course, why you support him. You don't believe for one second in the sincerity of his recent alien invasion "conversion." If you did, you would drop him like a hot potato.
Too funny! Getting information from the New York Slimes on any faith except this one is like getting advice from Jimmy Carter on foreign policy.
The only one stupider than the one giving the advice is the one taking it!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.