OpEdNews - Page 4 of Article: An Inconvenient Truth: Anti-Mormon Bias Sunk Romney

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."

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