It’s fairy logic, if any form of ‘logic’. If this process were so difficult to write, why copy so many chapters right out of the King James Bible, word for word?

You ask a good question. I’m an Eagle Scout with several years of adult Scouting under my belt, so this would bother me too if it were left unanswered. Fortunately, there’s a good answer. Sekulow addresses it comprehensively:

http://www.evangelicalsformitt.org/front_page/jay_sekulow_responds_to_boy_sc.php

Here’s the money quote:
“ According to local Salt Lake City newspapers, NewsMax’s article is dead wrong. According to Desecret News (Salt Lake City), David Bresnahan posted the story on both NewsMax.com and InvestigativeJournal.com, but Boy Scout Officials and Olympic officials “say the report is inaccurate and maintain they have good working relationship.” Mitt Romney responded to the NewsMax.com article by stating, “it happens to be 100 percent inaccurate.” Romney also said, “We’re very pleased to have Scouts help out.”

Kay Godfrey, the spokesperson who NewsMax quoted as saying he was displeased with the exclusion announced, “We’ve [The Boy Scouts] not been excluded. . . . The report is not accurate and not true.” Both Romney and the Boy Scouts acknowledged that there is an 18 year old restriction as well as a uniform policy which excludes all uniforms. “SLOC denies snubbing Scouts over gay stance,” 12/19/06 by Lynn Arave, Deseret News (Salt Lake City), p. B1.”

Enjoy!

Ping, since Elsie chose not to show the courtesy.

I do think I described their thinking accurately. I agree with you that their thinking is wrong, and that the real effect of it would only be to marginalize the anti-Mormons.

Ah, but Evangelicals for Mitt is only the messenger. The refutation is from Sekulow. I’d hope you’d consider him authoritative.

You’re welcome for the link.

~”So back to little children, Baptism is not so much to wash away their sins as it is the beginning of the teaching process. Faith, understanding, repentance, a process they will repeat for the rest of their lives. For Mormons, when you are baptized is not important (they have baptism for the dead, so that everyone is included) what is important is the process, Faith in Christ, Understanding and Repentance.”~

Spot on. You understand Mormonism better than some Mormons I know. :-)

Moving the goalposts? Sorry, I’m not playing your game.

Why We Support Governor Romney

The 2008 election is for president, not pastor. We want a president who shares our political and moral values and priorities, can win in 2008, and can govern effectively thereafter by articulating and implementing a values-based governing strategy. This is just what Mitt Romney did as governor and will do as president.

Governor Romney Shares Our Political & Moral Values

Political and moral values are informed by -- but not the same as -- one's religion. That's why we are not casting our votes based on whose theology we like most. History shows that to be a poor approach.

For example, in 1980 voters had two choices: a divorced movie actor who did not regularly attend church and was not on good terms with all of his children, and a once-married Southern Baptist whose evangelicalism was at the core of his national identity. Voting on the basis of whose doctrine was better would have meant electing the second guy -- Jimmy Carter -- over the first, Ronald Reagan. Excluding those who don't hold to orthodox Christianity would also have meant excluding such great Americans as Thomas Jefferson -- who denied the divinity of Christ -- from positions of authority. Is anybody going to argue someone else should've written the Declaration of Independence?

Today, we need a president who embraces a comprehensive and positive values agenda: standing for the sanctity of life, protecting traditional marriage, defending religious liberty and basic human rights at home and abroad, combating poverty and disease within the world's poorest communities, fighting for better quality of life for our citizens, and winning the War on Terror.

We don't want to say doctrine doesn't matter -- it does, very much, in our churches and in our individual relationships with God. But this is a presidential election, and those are about values. Governor Romney is the only candidate with all the right ones. One of his opponents (Mayor Giuliani) is simply not with conservative evangelicals on our bread-and-butter issues -- life and marriage -- and perhaps even more disturbingly, another opponent (Governor Huckabee) has virtually nothing to say about winning the War on Terror. That's probably the ultimate values issue, since the people we are fighting hate our values and want to destroy our civilization.

Governor Romney Can Win in 2008

The Supreme Court is one vote short of overturning Roe v. Wade, and the next president will likely nominate two or three justices. But he can't do that if he loses to President Hillary Rodham Clinton. Governor Romney can beat her -- and the rest of the Democratic field. As a fiscal and social conservative, he's the only candidate who can hold the Reagan coalition together. Plus, he has already put together a strong, well-organized campaign with the firepower to win. Every single other GOP candidate either alienates a key part of the coalition or has weak a operation incapable of defeating a well-funded, ruthless, counter-to-our-values opponent in the general election.

Governor Romney Can Govern Effectively Thereafter

It's worth reprising: The Republican nominee must be both a fiscal and social conservative. That's the Reagan formula for success. When it breaks down, Republicans lose. And it will break down if Republicans nominate a candidate who says public funding for abortions is a constitutional right (Mayor Giuliani) or one who's known nationally for hiking taxes and spending money (Governor Huckabee).

But there's more than that. Above all else, the president has to lead -- he has to be a good executive. And as much as we love President Bush, we've seen far too many examples in recent years of poor performance in this regard. Not only that, Washington is a tough town -- and that will be true whether the Democrats continue to control Congress after 2008 or not. In that environment, leadership -- especially conservative leadership -- isn't easy.

Fortunately, Governor Romney has been a leader longer than he has been a politician. Prior to his political career, Governor Romney helped to launch the very successful Bain Capital -- which helped launch such successful franchises as Staples and the Sports Authority -- and then led a turnaround at Bain Consulting. He also saved the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City which, prior to his leadership, were mired in debt and corruption but subsequently became one of the most successfully-run Games in memory.

And he's governed in a difficult political environment, too. Massachusetts is the most left-wing state in the union. If you think Bay State Democrats aren't any different from their Arkansan counterparts, try defending traditional marriage or vetoing stem-cell funding up in Boston, as Governor Romney did, and see what they do. (As for New York City Democrats, we don't even know how they would react to such values-based governing, because we can't think of anyone who's tried it.) But Governor Romney did -- in addition to helping turn the economy around, opposing driver's licenses and in-state college tuition for illegal immigrants, and defending Catholic Charities' right to restrict adoptions to man-woman couples. No other candidate has a record of such successful, across-the-board conservative leadership—especially on such hostile terrain.

Summing It All Up

Mitt Romney has been a standout conservative governor of a very liberal state. He believes in the traditional family, and he has fought for it -- just ask Massachusetts' pro-family leaders. He's admitted he was wrong on abortion, and is now solidly pro-life -- as his record in Massachusetts testifies. He also opposes embryonic stem cell research's speculative and open-ended carelessness with human life. He's shown courage under fire in several challenging situations, and has lived out his values (both publicly and privately) during a time when other Republicans, sadly, have not.

Conservative evangelicals do not have to compromise on our values this election: Gov. Romney embodies all the principles for which we've long fought. Plus, he has the organizational strength, executive experience, and moral rectitude to remind us what being a conservative is all about.

In other words, he's not just a candidate evangelicals can support -- he's the best choice for people of faith. It's not even close.

http://www.evangelicalsformitt.org/

You’re nitpicking. Maybe next time I’ll have more patience for it.

tant,
I agree the article seemed well researched, despite who
posted it.

That is, of course, one of the biggest pet peeves I have
about posters at FR (not you)... they seem unable to
separate the facts of an article from the source that
published them. Before reading an article and seeing
what facts are there, they condemn the facts because of
the source that published them. For example, if it is
any mainstream media source on TV or Newspaper, they
immediately discount the factual basis in the piece.

It doesn’t speak well of “conservatives”... they are
the Right Wing reflection of Left Wing Loonies who
condemn everything on Fox News, without regard to the
facts.

ampu

~"a phonetic set of Characters known as Bo Po Mo Fo"~

I speak jive.

Thank you for posting the rest of the story.

~”You MUST be a Mormon. Only Mormons equate being a Christian with actions and not belief.”~

I ran across this today. This is Ryan Bell. Nobody terribly influential, but he says it better than I’ll shamelessly steal:

“For most people, seeing a person declare faith in Jesus Christ as the “Savior of mankind” is more than enough basis to call that person a Christian. Not so with modern evangelicals, for whom ‘Christian’ has become more a signifier of denominational purity than adoration of Christ. In their attempts to exclude Mormons from the club, evangelicals have had to do all kinds of gymnastics to tell us what “Christian” really means, and have ended up throwing Christ right out of the analysis. Reliance solely on the Bible, but also adherence to certain extra-biblical creeds, and emphasis on this New Testament passage (but not this one!) and historical unity with other Christian churches (except for all the disunity all the Christian churches have had with one another) are all more important than a declaration of Christ as savior.”
Source: http://www.romneyexperience.com/2008/01/28/romney-never-acknowledged-that-mormonism-is-not-a-christian-faith/

He brings up a good point: Are Evangelicals who harbor this philosophy worshiping the -doctrine- in lieu of the -Lord-? Has their dogma, in being raised to an importance above that of following Christ Himself, become their idol?

Well said. The MSM conspiracists seem to run rampant through here.

I believe that is the cause of the venom they spew. They have taken the Christ out of Christian.

Wasn’t it you who made the snide remark that a god who put so much junk DNA in our chromsomes wasn’t much good at ‘creating’? I think I recall such a stupid remark coming from you!

That wasn't precisely what I said but yes that would have been me : )

Did you know that they have identified some of the precise Retro Viruses in that junk DNA? Sadly you creationist folk will never get to fully appreciate the miracle that all life is : (

~"Yeah, I know you born againers think that once you are saved you are free to go and sin all you want."~

~”If this process were so difficult to write, why copy so many chapters right out of the King James Bible, word for word?”~

Ummm.... because they were important? And the Nephites didn’t have the Bible? And they still wanted to give the teachings to their children?

Agreed.

Three percent of your DNA codes to make proteins. The other 97% has a high degree of ‘linguistic correlation’, thus it is not junk DNA. Science just hasn’t yet figured out what the message being conveyed is saying.