The LDS cannot appropriate what's rightfully theirs. No one owns the name Christian as has already been demonstrated. There are many varieties of Christian.
That you have a specific meaning in mind doesn't delimit the LDS from calling themselves and being Christians.
Thoughtful people can judge that Christianity is either a belief in a specific set of doctrines or the actions that come from that specific belief. There isn't another choice.
What you name as demeaning "Christianity" is self-referencing. What one might say instead is that the LDS don't believe in the Christianity that Greyfoxx39 believes in and that is patently obvious. That one person's beliefs demeans another is the argument that homosexuals, race-baiters, race-mongers and their liberal/progressive enablers use to enforce their thinking on a whole society.
One can see that this type of thought-policing isn't healthy whether it is espoused by liberals or conservative "Christians". Americans believe in freedom of thought and extend to their well-behaved fellows a Respect for Conscience. That's my reference point.
It's what makes our country so special.
So you likewise contend then that "No one owns the" religious identity of "Jew" and "there are many varieties of Jews"?
The only thing that is "rightfully" mormon is the heritage of being birthed by a lying, adulterous charlatan who hated Christianity. The belief that men may become gods demeans Christ in pretending that HE had to "work His Way" up through the silly "covenants" that mormonism pretends God is bound to obey.
Your statement, "That one person's beliefs demeans another is the argument that homosexuals, race-baiters, race-mongers and their liberal/progressive enablers use to enforce their thinking on a whole society" is laughable when tryng to defend mormonism, a cult that pretends to be the "only way to salvation" while attempting to weasel its way into being seen by Christianity as legitimate. Mormonism's dream is to enforce it's thinking on the whole world Flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon and that dream is failing.
I believe that the coming months will see the effect of the multi-million dollar PR campaign of "mormons are Christian" when Romney and Huntsman are rejected soundly. The mormon church is wrong in believing that playing footsie with muslims will enhance the reputation it already has, and in thinking the current "kumbaya" moment by some religions includes it. Mormonism will still be seen as the redneck apology for Joseph Smith's lecherous polygamy...that label will never go away.