I would agree with you in part, but it’s a lot more than that, you can see it in the FLDS threads.
I said this when Romney was a candidate. Like it or not, conservatism is a philosophical position, NOT a religious one. We need all conservatives to work together if we want to enact a conservative agenda.
And like it or not, a vast majority of people of the Mormon faith are also largely adherents to good conservative principles. They are firm on family values, on the value of religion, the value of belief in an absolute morality, personal responsibility, individualism, and the desire for government to be limited and to stay out of people’s lives.
In our fight against abortion, a large majority of Mormons are on our side, fighting the fight with us. On religious freedom, they are by our side. On limited government, on tax cuts, on fiscal responsibility — every Mormon I work with is to the right of center (I know there are liberal Mormons, I am talking generalities here).
The Mormon voting bloc is not as big as the Evangelical bloc, but if every Mormon stayed home, we would have fewer conservatives in office today.
And yet, throughout FR, there is a concerted effort to throw the Mormons out of the “conservative party”. It’s not just Mormons, I’ve also seen a concerted effort from a small minority to remove conservative American Muslims from the “conservative movement”. To some, it seems religious purity is more important than conservative victory.
I am not a Mormon, despite those who accuse me of being so. I don’t happen to believe that the Mormon faith is Christian, although I am certain that there are Christians in the Mormon church, just as there are Christians in the Methodist church.
My Mormon friends know my position about their church, but it is always presented with respect.
Frankly, a Church with a history of evil should know better than to judge a group of people based on the bad acts of a few, even a few leaders.
This isn’t a religious apologetic — I think the response here to the anti-Mormon hatred is misguided. I’d prefer if religion stayed in the religious threads, and if the political and philosophical threads would stick to facts and reasoned opinions based on facts, rather than deteriorating to childish namecalling and vicious attacks on other people’s religious beliefs.
If I had my way, that would hold true for Athiests, Jews, Muslims, Budhists, and any other religious persuasion that may be reflected in these threads. I might have deep religious disagreements with all those religions, but if someone opposes tax increases and government solutions to what should be private problems, they are my POLITICAL ally, no matter how misguided their personal beliefs are.
“And yet, throughout FR, there is a concerted effort to throw the Mormons out of the “conservative party”. “
In all my years on FR, I’ve never seen a concerted effort to
throw a single mormon out of the conservative party. I welcome
all conservatives, regardless of faith - and that includes
mormons, of course.
That does not mean I agree with mormons on mormon religious
threads - or Jehovah’s Witnesses on religious threads, or
Hare Krishna’s on religious threads, or lots of FReepers on
threads of a variety of topics. If we all agreed, there wouldn’t be much of a discussion. We could all just sit
around holding hands and saying, “yep! me too!”
ampu