Mormonism not focus of Romney speech

[davidinalameda]

Source: LA Times

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney said Monday that he would not focus on his Mormon beliefs in a major speech on religion this week and instead would discuss his concern that "faith has disappeared from the public square."

The former Massachusetts governor encouraged Americans to learn about Mormonism but said he did not see himself as a spokesman for his religion.

"There's plenty of ways that people can learn more about my faith if they'd like to, I'm sure -- a lot of websites people can go to," Romney told reporters as he opened a two-day New Hampshire campaign swing.

Romney's speech Thursday in Texas will confront a key challenge to his candidacy: many Republican evangelicals' wariness of Mormonism.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-romney4dec04,0,7849767.story?coll=la-home-center

[saracat]

1. Maybe he doesn't know enough to really discuss it? Or maybe a campaign shouldn't be a "mission" ?

[bleever]

2. They could get the word out with twenty-year-olds on ten speeds

instead of relying on web sites, but that's just one suggestion.

(No offense to honest and earnest LDS members I know.)

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. Why do these religious nuts always act like they are the underdog minority

And that they don't have a voice on mainstreet USA? They have dozens of tax-free places of worship on every mainstreet.

[trusty elf]

6. It's a blatant propaganda ploy and scare tactic.

I'm so tired of superstitious ignoramuses I could :puke:

[NMMNG]

4. Faith has not disappeared from the public square

There are countless churches, synagogues, temples and mosques in every town/city of America. Faith is everywhere.

[Crunchy Frog]

5. "faith has disappeared from the public square."

Yeah, I mean it's like, you never hear those guys talking about religion in public these days. Somebody needs to put a stop to it immediately. :crazy:

[JTFrog]

7. I'm sure his handlers realized that trying to explain his religion

publicly in an hour speech would make him sound like a loon; from Mr. Smith in the tree to the holy underwear. My mother and brothers entered the religion late in life. I tried to understand their attraction, but I just never got it. Besides they wouldn't let me into their church unless I agreed to sit amongst a dozen high positioned males begging for their forgiveness for my past sins. As if that would happen in this lifetime. Maybe I'll fall for it my next time around.

[truthisfreedom]

8. I can see how trying to explain Mormonism could be a problem for him. For example...

We have Joseph Smith Jr. receiving the "golden plates" sometime in the 1820's...


According to WIkipedia, Joe "said he translated the work from an ancient set of golden plates inscribed by prophets, which Smith discovered near his home in western New York in the 1820s after being told to go there by an angel. Besides Smith himself, there are more than 11 witnesses who said they saw the plates either physically or in a vision in 1829. There are are also many other witnesses,some hostile, who observed him dictating the text that eventually became the Book of Mormon, while Smith was looking into a hat at a seer stone."

Of course, the problem creeps in when one looks up the definition of "seer stone" in Wiki, and finds that it was a rock in a hat that could be used for magical devining, a job he was paid for before he started his religion.

I've been a member (against my will as a child) of a religious cult and Mormonism simply doesn't impress me the least bit. I classify it with Eck (former leader is apparently living on Venus) and Scientology ("unscrupulous commercial enterprise that harasses its critics and abuses the trust of its members"- Wiki).

[earthside]

11. Are you kidding?

There is no way Romney can talk about LDS theology.

Real Mormon History

In my opinion, people can believe whatever they want as long as it doesn't impinge on my life and my freedoms. But, a "good, practicing" Mormon as President just couldn't behave that way.

My hunch is that this speech will backfire on Romney, this is probably the beginning of the end for his candidacy. Ironically, I am becoming more convinced that Huckabee may be the eventual nominee for the radical Republican Party -- an acceptable theocrat for them.

[Ian David]

9. I agree! More faith in the public square! May His Noodly Appendage Touch Us All!

[tanyev]

10. Darn. I was hoping he'd give the speech from the steps of a temple baptismal font

and tell us how we could all have our dead ancestors baptized into the Mormon church.

[bigworld]

12. There are a LOT of other reasons not to support Romney

.. we should be concentrating on them.

[Javaman]

13. In other words, "this is not about me, it's about your religion, mine is fine and dandy!"

oh mitt bigotry wrapped in good intentions only comes off as stupidity.

[NoodleyAppendage]

14. Any real discussion of LDS tenets would make him look batshit crazy

Romney, as I suspect many other thinking members of his religion, know that substantial discussion about Mormon tenets and practices would give the appearance that he is wacko. It's not his fault that the religion is incoherent at times in its philosophy or that some of the core beliefs are bizarre.

[Zorra]

15. Exactly. Voting for Romney would be kind of like voting for Reverend Moon.

Both are extremely wealthy RWers and are members of religions with doctrines so bizarre that they make believing in Santa Claus look like a reasonable basis for a religion.