 |
Add to My Group
An Inconvenient Truth: Anti-Mormon Bias Sunk Romney
By Suzanne Sataline, Posted by Skeeter Sanders (about the submitter) Page 4 of 4 page(s)
Hitchens, the best-selling author of God is Not Great, wrote last fall that Romney owed voters a discussion about "the mad cult" of his church. Similar commentaries inspired Ryan Bell, a Salt Lake City attorney, to start a Web site, Romney Experience.com last summer. "Every faith has wacky doctrines," he says, adding that the press seems fixated on his faith's more sensational side.
Past Bias Against Blacks Still Haunts Mormons
Mormon fury boiled over after O'Donnell's appearance on "The McLaughlin Group," when he called church founder Smith a pro-slavery criminal and rapist. He said Romney "was" a racist because he was a member of a church that discriminated against blacks until 1978.
Bell and others responded on their Web sites that Smith, who faced many charges in his turbulent life, including treason, was never convicted of any crimes. (At least one Mormon historian says he was found guilty of a misdemeanor as a minor for fraud, but others say incomplete court records make it impossible to determine.)
The allegations about the church discriminating against African-Americans stung the most. Many Mormon historians say Smith welcomed blacks from the church's inception, had ordained some blacks onto the Mormon ministry and ran on an abolitionist platform for president in 1844.
African-Americans were barred from becoming church leaders, they say, by Smith's successor, Brigham Young. Many Protestant churches, Bell pointed out, were also racially segregated well into the 1970s. In 1978, the church lifted the ban on blacks becoming leaders.
Mormons called on the "McLaughlin Group" to take action against O'Donnell. Host John McLaughlin decided that O'Donnell, who appeared seven times last year, will be kept off the air for now, says Allison Butler, the show's managing director. But any apology to Mormons must come from him, Butler says.
Although Romney's withdrawal from the race is likely to quiet the controversy for now, many church members believe the turmoil of the past year will have lasting effects. "There will be a long-term consequence in the Mormon church," says Mauss, the Mormon sociologist.
"I think there is going to be a wholesale reconsideration with how Mormons should deal with the latent and overt anti-Mormon propaganda, Mauss continued. "I don't think the Mormons are ever again going to sorrowfully turn away and close the door and just keep out of the fray."
# # #
Volume III, Number 10
Special Report Copyright 2008, Dow Jones & Company.
The 'Skeeter Bites Report Copyright 2008, Skeeter Sanders. All rights reserved.
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
 Contact Editor |
by Charles L. Glenn
$30.95
Lowest New Price $16.95
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Princeton University Press
by Daniel C. Quayle, Dan Palm
$29.95
Lowest New Price $22.56
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: Rowman
$22.95
Lowest New Price $4.00
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
by Faith Adiele
$14.95
Lowest New Price $6.02
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: W.W. Norton
| 3 comments |
Want to post your own comment on this Article? 
|
||||
|
||||||||||||||
Must Read (0) 
Well Said (0) 
News (0) 
Touching (0) 
Funny (0) 
Supported (0) 
Interesting (0) 
Inspiring (0) 
Valuable (0) Tell a Friend:
|
Copyright © 2002-2009, OpEdNews |
