Is Mitt’s Mormonism An Issue?

I initially thought Mitt Romney might have some difficulty winning the nomination because he’s a Mormon, but now I think it’s just because he’s an asshole. Nobody but nobody likes him. It almost makes me feel sorry for him. I said it almost makes me feel sorry for him, but not really. I have a hard time mustering any sympathy for someone who basically shits one hundred dollar bills, thinks corporations are people, has photo-ops of himself eating at Carl’s Jr. because, as you know, that’s how us commoners dine, and who boasts about how his wife drives a couple of Cadillacs (and she turns around and says she doesn’t feel rich). He is the personification of all that is most loathsome about the one percent, and people know it. The American people seem to be getting this one right.

But I have a question, an honest one. Why is Mitt’s Mormonism a verboten topic? I’m not suggesting that we discriminate against him on the basis of his religion, of course not. From what I understand he was a moderate governor and he doesn’t seem too hung up on social issues. His Mormonism doesn’t really seem to influence his politics all that directly. At any rate, he seems to prefer Mammon to the Lord. So I guess if he’s willing to keep it in the closet we ought to return the favor and stay off the topic. Yet I’m not fully convinced that someone’s fundamental beliefs on the nature of life, death, God, heaven, hell, and the soul are politically irrelevant.

I find it a tad disturbing the way we pussy-foot around the issue of faith. Let someone declare something to be their religious belief and the rest of us are supposed to slam our critical faculties shut. But at a certain point I have to question the judgment of a grown man who believes in the palpable absurdities of the Mormon religion. I’m not saying this to be deliberately provocative or offensive. I’ve known a great many Mormons who were kind and decent people, although I’ve also known a few apostates who didn’t have anything kind to say about the church at all, no way. But I just have to say that the theology of Mormonism is really quite silly. It’s one step above Scientology as far as I’m concerned, and just reeks of fraud. I can’t believe that an angel named Moroni gave Joseph Smith golden tablets containing the word of God on them. It’s just bizarre and it contains way more than a whiff of cultishness to it.

To be fair, I think all religious beliefs are incredible and silly. I don’t have a particular axe to grind against the Mormons. I’m just not sure how much of a free pass Mitt should get on this.

Let’s face it, if Mitt Romney was an atheist there would be a public reckoning. He’d be booted off the stage before sundown, and if he was a Muslim he would forced to openly renounce terrorism, probably on a frequent basis. But we all know that atheists and Muslims can’t become president, because we do in fact discriminate against people on the basis of their beliefs, or the lack thereof.

But if Mitt Romney had been a member of an all white country we’d have heard about it, wouldn’t we? Well the Mormon church didn’t allow black people to become priests, until God conveniently told the head of the Church in 1977 it was okay. That’s a little late in the day, don’t you think? Mitt Romney was all growed up by then and he had to be fully cognizant of the Church ’s policy, right? But then Mitt and the family give the strong impression that they haven’t spent too much time around the brown-skinned folk, unless you count the maids. Those people are whiter the the freakin Nelsons or the Cleavers. They are blindingly white, man

Now, I’m perfectly willing to accept that Mitt Romney, like most religious people, doesn’t believe in a literal truth of scripture. He probably does the same thing most other Christians do, cherry-picks the items that conform to his biases and goes from there. Hardly a day passes you don’t hear some Evangelical shrieking about the proscription on homosexuality in the book of Leviticus, but you rarely hear them getting their undies in a wad about people eating shellfish or bacon, or wearing sweaters with more than one fabric.