The faith's early history was marked by tension and brutal forced exiles, sparked in part by the practice of polygamy -- having multiple spouses -- by some church members. After Smith was arrested in Nauvoo, Illinois, a mob killed him and drove off his followers. The Mormons fled west, ultimately settling in Utah in 1847.
Polygamy fed repeated conflicts with the federal government until the church banned the practice worldwide in 1904. The church has flourished in recent years and now claims 13 million members worldwide.
Romney's candidacy revived old lines of attack and mockery of some of the church's unusual practices, such as secret ceremonies, the wearing of special undergarments, and the baptizing the dead in the belief that it will help them join family members in heaven.
Among the most active critics were practitioners of evangelical Christian "apologetics" -- speakers and writers who make their mission to actively defend their faith. For some of them, that involves criticizing Mormonism. At the Life Point Bible Church in Quincy, Illinois last month, evangelical apologist Rocky Hulse told 35 members that Romney should not be considered a Christian.
Hulse, himself a former Mormon, told the group that Mormons believe in more than one god and that they believe God impregnated Mary in the normal fashion, not by granting her a virgin birth. The audience sat rapt.
Scott Gordon, president of the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, a Mormon group, says Hulse is wrong on the facts. Mormons pray to one God, he says, and believe, like most Christians, that Mary was a virgin. Gordon went on talk-radio shows to rebut claims of other apologists.
Huckabee Remark Sparks Anger Among Mormons -- and a Decision to Fight Back
In December, while campaigning for the Iowa caucuses, Republican candidate Mike Huckabee asked a magazine reporter: "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?" Huckabee is an ordained Southern Baptist minister who stepped down from the pulpit in 1992 to run for governor of Arkansas to succeed Bill Clinton, who won the White House that year.
Mormon church leaders, who repeatedly asserted the church's neutrality in elections, had tried to keep out of the political fray. But church spokesman Michael Otterson says they couldn't ignore Huckabee's comment. Members said it implied that they were devil worshipers. Phones were ringing off the hook at church headquarters in Salt Lake City.
"Jesus Christ and Lucifer are indeed offspring of our Heavenly Father and, therefore, spirit brothers" from a pre-existing world, the church said in a statement. "Christ was the only begotten in the flesh."
"I'm not impugning the motives of a political candidate," Otterson said. "But the result of the question was to confuse the situation, not to enlighten." Huckabee swiftly apologized to Romney for the comment. He handily won the Iowa caucuses, helped by huge numbers of evangelicals.
(With Romney now out of the race, Huckabee himself may face voter opposition for his religious views. The January Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed that 45 percent of Americans have concerns about an evangelical Christian as president.)
Soon, the Mormon Church began posting its videos on YouTube -- twenty-two so far. One clip, for example, showed Ballard, the church apostle, answering the question "Are Mormons Christian?" It has drawn 26,000 views. By contrast, a cartoon clip from "The God Makers," a 1980s film that mocks Mormon beliefs, has been viewed 945,000 times.
Ballard's call for more new-media activism inspired dozens of new Web sites. On Politicalds.com, several Mormons of different political views write about the presidential race. Founder Mike Rogan, of Chandler, Arizona, says he started the blog "to combat some specific misconceptions about Mormons," including that all Mormons are "conservatives with a mindless 'sheep' mentality."
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