~”One big fat difference: when’s the last time the Masons or Quakers sent a couple of nicely-dressed, articulate folks to your doorstep to tell you about what their beliefs are? The method that your faith uses to extend itself is what motivates a lot of distrust, unfortunately.”~
Goodness, I hope you’re wrong. We are a faith that proselytes aggressively; I’m afraid I fail to understand what is threatening about that, though. If a person is unwilling to listen, we smile and walk on.
Interestingly, the LDS Church encourages its members to find the new members, rather than the missionaries. In an ideal world, I invite you over as a friend to hear the missionaries; the only role they would serve is to teach. It doesn’t always work like that, so they go from door to door to fill time.
But what is it about a knock on the door that would engender mistrust? From my perspective, I fail to understand it.
~”I can’t think of any other faith tradition that has been hurt by having one of its members become President.”~
I hope that you’re right, but Mormons seem to be treated differently in many other ways. I suppose it remains to be seen if this will be one of them.
~”Oddly enough, it is this, “We’ve gotten past this,” that anti-Mormon voters are not willing to confer. They don’t really oppose Romney on issues relating to the economy or the military (although I can understand that social conservatives have legitimate worries about the “flip-flop” problem), but they know that his nomination and election mean that their anti-Mormon rhetoric looks more like bigoted ramblings that their fellow Americans have repudiated at the ballot box.”~
Excellently stated. Another dimension that must be considered is that anti-Mormonism is quite a lucrative business; pamphlets, books, tapes, speeches are all sold. Those whose livelihoods depend on the business are taking advantage of Romney’s election as an excellent opportunity to play on the fears they market so well, and they’re stirring the pot for two reasons: 1. they get to sell more stuff right now, and 2. if Romney wins, they lose support, and therefore business.
I must admit that some of my excitement over Romney is generated by the anticipation I have for the deeply satisfying sense of schadenfreude I would experience for these people if Romney were to be president. It’s not a terribly intellectual response, so I try to look past it; but it is a growing factor in my decisions as such people attack what I love day after day.
I know that, and I graciously tell missionaries that I'm not interested, and wish them a good day. I know they get a lot of nasty treatment out there.
But you use the word 'aggressively', and it does apply to the way that a lot of people feel about proselytizing in general. In the modern American nation, the vast majority of religious traditions are very subtle with efforts to reach out to those of other faiths, or with no faith, and that makes those who do use more active techniques stand out. Even more to the point, the door-to-door salesperson (i.e., Fuller Brush or Avon) has become an anachronism, that makes LDS members and Jehovah's Witnesses stand out even more. Again, I apologize for the comparison, I understand that your faith tradition says that a nonbeliever has a chance to accept your religion even after death, whereas I doubt I'm going to do what it takes to be in the top 144,000 JW's!
I hope that you’re right, but Mormons seem to be treated differently in many other ways. I suppose it remains to be seen if this will be one of them.
I saw the PBS two-parter on the Mormons a couple of months ago, and it focused on how they have gone from the fringes of American society to a more mainstream part of our nation's life. Certainly, Governor Romney's campaign will be the first to seriously test if that assimilation is complete, but it might be like Al Smith in 1928, where the nation was not yet ready to elect him as President, while the history of anti-Catholic prejudice was still fresh in the American mind. Fortunately for Governor Romney, he does not have to fight issues that are directly tied with his religion, like Smith did with Prohibition.
Another dimension that must be considered is that anti-Mormonism is quite a lucrative business; pamphlets, books, tapes, speeches are all sold.
Well, my feeling is that it is merely a cottage industry at best, but I'm not confronted with it as frequently as you might be, so I have a different perspective of it. Know that it is offensive to many of your fellow Americans, as offensive as racial hate 'literature' was to people forty or fifty years ago during the rise of the civil rights movement. Yes, there were those 'buying' the racial bigotry, but there's a much smaller market for it now.
Please understand that the worst of it is to come. The movie "September Dawn" will inspire a lot of questions from your fellow Americans, and not just the political junkies from FR that you have been dealing with so far. In fact, you should consider it your good fortune to have the anti-Mormon bigotry displayed here to be able to have honed your skills and abilities before this film came out. There are some attitudes that your neighbors and co-workers will not display to your face, but you now have an awareness of. Governor Romney's candidacy has already done some good for LDS FReepers.
Even though I was only a four year old kid during JFK's Presidential campaign, I was at least minimally aware of the anti-Catholic prejudices that my parents and grandparents generations whispered about during family gatherings. It meant a lot to my family to have a Catholic President, and I remember being called to my knees by a nun in parochial school on that fateful afternoon when we were all fearing the worst in November, 1963. Even though the reasons for JFK's assassination were not religious in nature, many Catholics felt like it was an attack on our faith. JFK became a martyr-saint in the homes of many Catholics who hung his portrait like a religious icon in their homes. The outpouring of national grief helped to heal the old wounds between Catholics and non-Catholics, and it was only through recovery from this trauma that many of us finally felt equality.
I must admit that some of my excitement over Romney is generated by the anticipation I have for the deeply satisfying sense of schadenfreude I would experience for these people if Romney were to be president.
It's good that you recognize that; if you telegraph it, it just lowers you to the level of those you oppose. The most important thing to keep in mind with this election is not whether Mitt Romney can be nominated and become President, but will the way his LDS supporters act reflect well on their faith, and their Americanism. Judging by the way that Mormon FReepers here have acted, I feel that the people of your faith tradition will continue on the path towards greater acceptance by all Americans.