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...

[tantiboh]

These are good questions you ask, and are on my mind; hopefully in this thread, though, we can keep with a political discussion.

[RaceBannon]

No offense, but, no

No, I wont

Unless we speak of making SETI something akin to the Manhattan Project so Mormons can contact their fellow God Mormons....

[tantiboh]

RaceBannon, are you capable of holding a strictly political discussion about Romney, or does your obsession with attacking the “evils of Mormonism” somehow restrict your abilities?

You must realize that you are winning no converts through such tactics.

[RaceBannon]

Mormons do NOT claim Jesus for their Salvation, they still believe works are necessary for salvation

[muawiyah]

Are you telling me Jedediah Smith and Jim Bridger didn’t actually exist?

[Homeschoolmom]

“There are no real third parties, so what you are saying is you’d accept Hillary winning because you’d rather not elect a Mormon Republican.”

Again, the more important issue in my mind (and with other Evangelical Christians to whom I’ve spoken) is an eternal one.
So, yes, I would accept Hillary before I would vote for a Mormon. That’s because I’d rather see the U.S. sink a few notches than see more people end up in Hell because they saw Mormonism as a legitimate Christian religion. Everything in this life will pass away. The choice of where we spend eternity takes preeminence over all our temporal concerns.

However, I think you overlook a very important problem with Romney. He has changed his positions according to the political climate in which he finds himself. That tells me that he has no real core conservative values.
Personally, I think that will end up hurting him more than his being a Mormon. His being a Mormon may be a bigger concern to me, but I don’t think most Americans care as much as I about those things.

[narses]

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[RaceBannon]

I am not interested with Romney, but only in makng Mormon’s think about just how absurd their teachings have been, and to turn to the Bible instead.

[Saundra Duffy]

If the election were between Hillary and Mitt you would go third party which means you would be voting for Hillary. This is how we got Bill Clinton, remember? The Ross Perot factor.

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, my personal Savior and I love Him with all my heart. He died for me to save me from my sins. And yet you hate my faith so much that you would not vote for Mitt Romney just because he is a Mormon. It is just so sad.

The person who posted this article said, “I hope we can stay within the realm of political commentary. If the thread veers into religious bashing, I will immediately request that it be moved to the Religion forum.”

There has already been some Mormon bashing here so I suggest the thread be moved. Thanks.

[tantiboh]

~”Are you telling me Jedediah Smith and Jim Bridger didn’t actually exist?”~

Of course not. But you said: “Bill Clinton’s forebears and mine were on those trails long before the Mormons.”

Smith and Bridger may have been there before the Mormons (the Ute Indians had been living there for many moons) but they certainly didn’t build “those trails” into the Basin.

I hope we’re not getting bogged into a semantical argument...

[tantiboh]

~”Personally, I think that will end up hurting him more than his being a Mormon. His being a Mormon may be a bigger concern to me, but I don’t think most Americans care as much as I about those things.”~

I would tend to agree with you on that score.

[muawiyah]

Race, sorry to wake you up, but Quakers have had folks with some really strange beliefs over the centuries.

http://www.bookrags.com/William_Herschel has a pretty good brief on the great astronomer, William Herschel. Notice that his life overlaps the formative years of the early Mormon leadership In his time Herschel was the "authority" on just about anything having to do with the Moon, and he stated he'd found signs of life there.

Educated men, or those who wished to appear to be educated, definitely quoted Herschel for most of the 1800s.

Ultimately better science drove out bad science but as late as the early 20th century you found folks believing that something like Barsoon actually existed on Mars.

It's noteworthy that even President Thomas Jefferson didn't know about the germ theory of disease ~ and he might well have referenced Herschel's stuff himself.

One would believe later Mormon prophets have "clarified" the matter.

I'm certainly not going to check it and doubt if Romney has made any statements along that line.

[tantiboh]

~”I am not interested with Romney, but only in makng Mormon’s think about just how absurd their teachings have been, and to turn to the Bible instead.”~

You do realize just what a clumsy medium plain text is for evangelizing, don’t you?

Additionally, if your goal is to make us Mormons “see the light,” so to speak, you might find persuasion and truth more effective tools than ridicule and falsehoods.

Now, if you insist on posting anti-Mormon rhetoric, I certainly can’t stop you. But this is a political thread, and you are not doing your viewpoint any good by trying to hijack it to religion. And I will keep nagging you if you do so.

[RaceBannon]

that is not the point

Mormon leaders claimed it came from God to have polygamy forever, that God was once a man, that Jesus and Satan and ME and YOU are literally related, and that men lived on the monn and dressed like quakers

it is a kooky religion

[tantiboh]

~”There has already been some Mormon bashing here so I suggest the thread be moved. Thanks.”~

I think I’d like to give it the benefit of the doubt for a while; there is some good political dialogue going on here still. I hope that we can all get the discussion back to the topics addressed in the article.

[tantiboh]

~”it is a kooky religion”~

In what way should that disallow Romney from the Presidency?

[Homeschoolmom]

“I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, my personal Savior and I love Him with all my heart. He died for me to save me from my sins. And yet you hate my faith so much that you would not vote for Mitt Romney just because he is a Mormon. It is just so sad.”

I would like to say to you that while I do dislike your religion, I certainly do not dislike you. (I don’t even know you! :-)
We can get into a discussion about Mormon teachings if you’d like, but I must tell you that the likelihood that either of us would change the other’s mind is highly unlikely.
The true Gospel according to the Bible is not in line with Mormon teaching. That is not bashing, it is the simple truth. One can not accept one and simultaneously accept the other.
The Gospel according to the Bible lies in the belief that salvation is through Christ alone. No works are involved.

The question of Romney is one sincerely asked by the OP and sincerely answered by myself and others. I could give the PC answer, but the OP seemed to want an honest reply, so that’s what I gave.

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

“Would you vote for a Quaker ~ they have strange beliefs ~ definitely not Christian ones ~”

Are you jesting? If this is a serious comment, I would suggest you know nothing about Quaker or Christian.

[tantiboh]

~”I could give the PC answer, but the OP seemed to want an honest reply, so that’s what I gave.”~

Indeed, it is appreciated.

So, you are in the group referenced in the article. You’re in a position to provide good insight. Short of renouncing his faith, is there anything that Romney could do to convince you that he’d be an acceptable vote to cast as President?

[muawiyah]

There are a lot of kooky religions. Democrats belong to all of them. Best bet is to vote Republican and keep on doing it as many times as you can