I am LDS too, and have had prejudiced members of other faiths treat me not as they would like to be treated, I’m sure.

Still, maybe this run is like Zions camp, where they marched all that way,and then left without feeling they had done anything to help the people get their rights and property back.

Yet, as we look back on it, we can see that it was in the STRUGGLE of that march, that people came to know themselves and others to know them. If I remember right most if not all of the 12 were chosen from that group.

I think Mitts run, has helped us to know him and our selves better and others to maybe know Mormons better. Maybe some will look at themselves and others like them and think they wished they had acted differently. Maybe NEXT election, though things in the world seem to be getting worse faster and faster, and maybe the Savior will return by that time!!

I put up a sign in our tiny town which said, “If you don’t support what you want, you may get what you don’t!”

There may be a lot of people who are sorry that they didn’t get out there sooner to show support for Mitts run. I notice that Hannity and others were asked about that even.

I was interested that in what I read, I have NOT seen that Romney is personally supporting McCain or Huckabee, but only said he would get out of the way. I’m glad for that, as I myself have had a hard time, but if that is the BEST we can come up with, I may “have to hold my nose and vote for him” has his mother said.

I have also wondered if “suspended” might mean that if something should happen, he MIGHT be willing to still be our President?? He didn’t say quit, or he didn’t think he would be the best, etc. ?

Well, I’m thankful that I believe that God is over all, and that as we have been praying that the best possible happen in this run, that I have to think it has, that somehow this will turn to the Romney family’s and all our goods, as we all do love the Lord Jesus Christ.

Also, I wondered if it might help some who have demonised (sp?) Mitt and all Mormons, to see him so graciously suspend, and now that they don’t have a target in him, maybe they will take a second look at what is left? Maybe they will realize they didn’t have so much to fear? Gods’ will be done on earth! Jane

When I talked about disenfranchisement I meant politically. According to CNN, in states where they gather such information, exit/entrance polls indicated Born Again and Evangelicals voted for Romney, or within 2% of Huckabee, in California, Arizona, New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida and Michigan. They had a chance to overwhelmingly vote anti-Mormon but did not. Of course the southern states are a different story. In other states there was a much smaller vote but it was not negligible. Maybe someone has better numbers, but I think these are enough to make my point. Compared to a few decades ago, this is a big improvement.

What makes the analysis credible is the fact that there are active programs in the Southern Baptist Convention and other Evangelical churches to teach their members that Mormons are “not legitimate”, the very doctrine that even moderate Evangelical leaders feared would be threatened by election of a Mormon to the presidency. Those churches and their ministers have, to a large extent, invested their financial resources and their credibility in a decades-long effort to slow down the Mormon juggernaut of conversion that takes some 30,000 to 40,000 people out of the Evangelical orbit each year and turns them into Mormons. Those efforts went on uninterrupted during the course of the primary campaigns, and made specific reference to Romney as a Mormon. Reverend Huckabee only had to do the subtlest of reminders to voters to remind them of their indoctrination in the belief that Mormons follow a bad religion, which reinforces the corollary that they must do so because they are ignorant and unintelligent, or actively seek what is bad. The next deduction in the chain is that any Mormon who appears to be intelligent and good is a deceiver. To credit Romney as both intelligent and good, in other words “legitimate”, would call into question the axiomatic foundation of the anti-Mormon teachings that are sponsored by so many congregations. Those who have been indoctrinated with the belief that Mormonism is a pagan cult since childhood Sunday School are a primed bomb of bias that only needs a small spark to be set off.

The saddest part of this story is that it has ministers of the gospel actively encouraging prejudice toward other people, shunning them and viewing them as irremediably evil or stupid. The reasoning the ministers give is that Mormonism leads people away from salvation, so it cannot be tolerated. Of course, strictly speaking, the same could be said about Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, or brands of Christianity that do not accept the Evangelical viewpoint. That kind of thinking, that anyone in “false” religions cannot be allowed full legitimacy in society, is the establishment of a religion as favored by the state, expressly barred by the First Amendment. The ministers of this “gospel” reject the teaching of the parable of the Good Samaritan, that a heretic who nevertheless loves his neighbor, regardless of religion, is better in the eyes of God than a theologically correct man who disobeys God’s second great commandment when it comes to such heretics. After all, Jesus himself said that the leaders of the Jews called him a “Samaritan”.

Latter-day Saints are expressly committed to giving full legitimacy to every other religion within a nation. It is one of the 13 Articles of Faith, a mutual religious tolerance. The fact of relgious differences is not allowed to be an excuse for using social or government power to restrict the rights and freedoms of other churches or their members. Mormons have voted for people not of faith for public office since the begginnings of their church in the US. One of the first Senators from Utah after statehood was a Catholic, Thomas Kearns, and one of the first governors was Simon Bamberger, a Jew. Anyone who has lived in Utah knows of examples where the LDS Church as an institution or local congregations have made special efforts to aid other churches, even to helping them build churches or rehabilitate them, as well as loaning buildings for special programs or when other churches had been destroyed by fire. Mormons give aid after disasters without regard to religion. How many Evangelical congregations have gone out of their way to aid a small Mormon congregation in the South, rather than picket and protest the construction of Mormon churches and temples?

MItt Romney has no special right or claim to be elected president because he is a Mormon. On the other hand, he does have a right as an American to be treated like any other law-abiding American, and not be shunned off the stage of public debate because of his religion.

One thing the numbers in the primaries make clear is that, despite the anti-Mormon indoctrination, a lot of Evangelicals were willing to support Romney in his campaign, as demonstrated by the endorsments given by some Evangelical leaders. They were usually explicit in drawing a distinction between endorsing Romney for the office and endorsing his church as legitimate. That was fine with Romney, as he made clear in The Speech. Unfortunately, that distinction proved too subtle for some people. Mike Huckabee’s statements on religious tolerance for Romney came across as grudging. He did not make any ringing endorsement of religious freedom for all, including for election to the presidency. He could not in fact do so without undercutting his chief argument for support, namely that by voting for him they would be advancing the specific cause of their view of religion over all others. He could hardly say “Mormons should be treated by every Christian as fully entitled to the same opportunities, including election to the presidency, as any Christian,” because he was saying from the outset that he was a superior candidate because of his dedication to that religion. Saying Romney is not a good choice for president because of his not being a “Christian” and saying that he should be excluded from election because of being a Mormon sound like the same thing to most voters. Claiming ignorance about Mormonism was clearly his way of avoiding confronting the intersection of his argument and the base of anti-Mormon prejudice among some Evangelicals. By feigning ignorance, Reverend Huckabee avoided giving any legitimacy to Romney’s religion, basically telling his supporters that Romney’s religion is a big question mark and they should have questions, and thus suspicion, about him.

I have to respectfully disagree. I live in Colorado and have a small service oriented business for women. When the Bible-study-group type of Evangelical woman finds out I’m a Mormon, they are shocked, because “they hear scary things about Mormons.”

They refuse to then discuss anything religious with me. Come on, there is a huge movement among Evangelical churches to paint Mormons with a very negative brush. And this is in Colorado, not even the south.

In fact, I often wonder if this was the “reason” for Mitt’s run. It obviously wasn’t for him to rescue the country from bad government, perhaps it was to cause some heat again.

* Dr. Dobson’s wife tried to exclude Mormons from the national day of prayer in 2004, never mind that that year, Mitt Romney had been fighting hard against the judicial imposition of gay marriage in Massachusetts.

* Dr. Dobson is telling people to vote against McCain priorto Super Tuesday. Yet after Mitt Romney suspends his campaign, he is willing to make an endorsement.

See my post at Called as Seen on this one.

I think I will get out and vote for McCain… just to spite Dr. Dobson.

In Salt Lake the (non-member/member,us/them) mentality is pretty strong yet Romney had major support all around. I personally think this had more to do with Romney spending two years of his time in Utah running the 2002 Olympics. The numbers througout his campaign showed that the more Romney could take his message to the people, the more support he got. That tends to support another commenter’s opinion that anti-mormon sentiment is strongest where people don’t know a lot of Mormons. Where people didn’t get to meet and know Romney, the predjudice (whether religious, the overly distorted flip-flopper label, or both) was strongest and lasted.

This has been a great election cycle, even if most of it was only observed by political junkies like myself. We had a wide open field that has been narrowed through a never before seen primary process. The national general election camapaign will be intense and electric. Hopefully, the religious debate truly has pulled more people out of their comfort zones and caused them to look around them and get involved. Not just in poltics, but in neighborhood outreach, defending their faith (evangelical and mormon), and helping to change the world. This election cycle has given us a very interesting view of where our country stands. I think the path of action for conservatives is clear, we need to regroup and come back stronger and more unified than ever. Hopefully, in time for the House/Senate/Presidential elections in November. There is more to change in Washington than just our Executive.

(That last bit was probably too political for Article VI but I’m sure religion will play some part in those State elections as well.)

Big buildings, TV programs and thousands of people filling the seats means nothing. Roman circuses attracted thousands too and you wouldn’t consider them holy. What you are seeing in such places is an abomination. They teach a form of godliness but their hearts are far away. Some teach hatred and intolerance and attract those of a similar mind set. That is what genuinely righteous people discover. Then they become uncomfortable and start looking around for something more. They find something is missing but they just don”t know what it is and they start looking elsewhere.

I don’t know the church you talk about but I recognize the symptoms. Just remember you knew what you were getting into before you came to this earth and you came anyway. You knew the benefits far out weighed the pain. Feel the anger but then put it away. Drop the ill will and choose to be happy knowing who you really are and why you are here. This is such an interesting time to be on the earth. You have so many blessings that others do not have. Remember your Father in heaven loves you and is aware of what happens. And most importantly, He is always available when you need Him and you don’t need any human being to make the connection for you.

I tend to believe as one of Time’s blogs suggested that the the Focus on Family voter bulletin did favor Romney. But unfortunately, Dobson couldn’t bring himself to openly endorse Romney.

Ultimately, I think it’s a step in the right direction.

In Salt Lake the LDS-owned radio station plays Focus on the Family and I always wished that Dobson’s Focus would better recgonize and work with the LDS Church and its members b/c their goals are so very similar.

Perhaps, the internal politics of his organization and co-believers prevent that, but I’d like to believe Dobson does the best he can.

And just as Romney’s exit makes Huckabee’s campaign irrelevant on the national level, it makes him look silly that he couldn’t get Dobson’s nod until it was already all over.