[LDS] Group calls on Santorum to disavow pastor over Mormon comments

KSL.com ^ | March 14th, 2012 @ 10:50am | KSL.com

[T Minus Four]

SALT LAKE CITY -- An LDS-oriented group is calling on GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum to disavow a pastor who made anti-Mormon comments earlier this week.

In a news release, MormonVoices, which is associated with the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, called for Santorum to "condemn the anti-Mormon comments made by his supporter, an honorary Florida chairman, the Rev. O'Neal Dozier" of the Worldwide Christian Center.

On Monday Dozier said "the Mormon religion is prejudiced against blacks, Jews and native Americans." He called Mormonism a "racist" religion and called on Romney to renounce it.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did not issue a response to Dozier but earlier has said "people of all races have always been welcomed and baptized into the church since its beginning" and "the church unequivocally condemns racism, including any and all past racism by individuals both inside and outside the church."

Scott Gordon, managing director of MormonVoices, not associated with the church, said, "Dozier's comments represent a form of religious bigotry that should not be tolerated by any serious candidate for the Presidency of the United States. His comments are either ignorant or are willful misrepresentations for personal or political purposes."

[reaganaut]

LOL. You are completely off the rails here.

We need to attack Romney. You accuse us of supporting Ron Paul yet cannot provide support for that assertion and then state you don’t care who I support. Well you are the one who started with we are Paul supporters.

This posting isn’t an attack on Santorum at all. It shows the hypocrisy of Mormonism which is a big concern of the OP’s.

Your claim that Santorum supporters don’t attack other candidates is ludicris because I’ve seen Santroum supporters post anti-Newt articles and anti-Romney articles.

And to accuse Tminus (OP) of only posting articles that attack GOP candidates is completely insane.

Now which one of us are paul supporters and you were the one who came on and hounded us so your statement “ The Santorum posters do not post negative articles about the other candidates, nor do they hound the supporters.” is obviously wrong since you are on this thread hounding US!

Get over it already.

[Eva]

The Freepmail that I received was challenging me to defend Santorum and to call on Santorum to denounce the Florida supporter. That is an attack on Santorum.

[svcw]

Paulers............

[Eva]

I have no idea who the anti-Santorum people are, actually and I don’t care, but there are a lot of them posting on FreeRepublic. I happen to believe that it is counter productive to attack other GOP candidates and Romney scares me to death for a host of reasons, the main one being Obmaneycare.

[reaganaut]

Well, the freepmailer was wrong. Again, this isn’t an attack on Santorum, it is an expose of Mormon hypocrisy.

There are far too many people on here who will vote for Romney even if he is not their first choice. Those on this thread (at least most of them) will not ever vote for Romney.

[Elsie]

I have no idea who the anti-Santorum people are...

I could guess...

[reaganaut]

I have no idea who the anti-Santorum people are,

- - - —
Yet you accused us of that above and intimated that we were Romney or Paul supporters.

Make up your mind already!

[Eva]

I guess that itw hadn’t occurred to me that Gringgrich supporters were that far over the edge to stoop that low.

[reaganaut]

Again you still seem to think this thread’s purpose is to attack Santorum, which it isn’t.

You are a one-track horse here.

[Eva]

It is an attack on Santorum, very similar to the attacks that the Paulers made on Rick Perry.

[reaganaut]

No, the Mormons are attacking Santorum. The OP, Tminusfour, supports Santorum and posted this to point out the hypocrisy of Mormons.

Touchy, aren’t you?

[Paperdoll]

>I’m tired of FReepers who do nothing but attack other GOP candidates....<

Do you not understand that Mitt Romney is not the candidate. He is the White Horse of the LDS cult. If he becomes president, the one religion of the New World Order will be in charage of you and of me. It is amazing how many people will not venture out of their comfort zones to emkbrace the Truth.

You obviously have not read “The God Makers” by Ed Decker and Dave Hunt. Nor “Battle Hymn...the sinisterNew World Order”.

[Eva]

I don’t care, the article was used to ask me to defend Santorum or call on Santorum to denounce the supporter by a Freeper who calls himself, B4Ranch.

He seemed to think it was pretty funny. All the posters on the first posting of the article were the Romney supporters.

Reposting the article played right into their hands and the hands of the Gingrich supporters, who like to claim that Santorum supporters are just too radical on social issues.

[T Minus Four]

No, the Mormons are attacking Santorum. The OP, Tminusfour, supports Santorum and posted this to point out the hypocrisy of Mormons.

Touchy, aren’t you?

Coming in late. What in the world is going on here? Eva, I support Santorum. I said NOTHING to "bash" anybody. I live in Utah and see lots of Mormon-centric local news that may not make the papers in other places.

The article show-cased Mormon hypocrisy .

Furthermore, I'm amused but growing tired of you following me around and whining about duplicate threads, not that it was. Just be a woman and push the "abuse" button.

[T Minus Four]

I’m not sure what your problem is, but I would like to make clear to all that I have NEVER FReepmailed you.

[T Minus Four]

I’m not sure what your problem is, but I would like to make clear to all that I have NEVER FReepmailed you.

[greyfoxx39]

There are approximately 6.1 Million Mormons in the US.

WIKI is taking the figures provided by the mormon church without the caveat that once baptized as mormon, members are carried on the rolls until the age of 110..unless there is proof of death. Since there are at least a couple of million of these baptized who haven't set foot in a mormon church for years, that number is highly inflated.

A majority of these are Conservatives. So, do you want ~4-5 Million voters, or do you want to alienate them?

See the membership statistics below from Cumorah.com and keep in mind that mormon children are baptized as members at the age of eight. If the remainder of these "conservative" mormons would vote for Obama because of the truth of their sect becoming known, they certainly are NOT conservative in any way.

Religion in United States

General Religious Data

Percentage attending religious services weekly: 44%

Estimated weekly average attending religious services (all faiths): 132000000

Major Religious Groups

#	Faith	Congregations	Active Members	Adherents	Percent	Annual Growth
1	Protestant	0	0	168000000	56.00%	0.91%
2	Catholic	0	0	84000000	28.00%	0.91%
3	Jewish	0	0	6000000	2.00%	0.91%
4	other	0	0	12000000	4.00%	0.91%
5	none	0	0	30000000	10.00%	0.91%
6	Jehovah's Witnesses	11426	988469	2153268	0.72%	0.91%
7	Seventh-day Adventists	4422	861954	1723908	0.57%	3.00%
8	Latter-day Saints	12753	2276268	5690672	1.897%	1.69%

Country religious adherents data courtesy of the World Factbook.LDS membership and unit data are derived from the LDS Church Almanac. Seventh-day Adventist statistics are from the Adventist yearbook statistical reports. Jehovah's Witness data are from the Jehovah's Witness yearly statistical report. Other data are from a variety of sources available upon request.

Extrinsic Religious Challenges and Opportunities: National and Cultural

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in United States

Official LDS Statistics LDS Members: 5690672 Missions: 106 Temples: 62 Stakes: 1390 Districts: 13 Wards: 10778 Branches: 1975 Total Congregations: 12753

Derived LDS Statistics Approx. Active Members: 2276268 Percentage of Members Attending Church Weekly: 40% Average members per congregation: 446 Average active members per congregation: 178 LDS, as percent of population: 1.8968% Active LDS, as percent of population: 0.7587% LDS, as percentage of churchgoers: 1.724% National population per LDS congregation: 23523

Annual LDS Membership Growth

#	Year	Members	Annual Growth Rate	Wards	Branches	Units	Unit Growth Rate	Proportionality Ratio
1	1976	2336715	0%	0	0	0	0%	0
2	1978	2486261	3.1%	0	0	0	0%	0
3	1980	2693765	4.01%	0	0	0	0%	0
4	1982	2882145	3.38%	0	0	0	0%	0
5	1984	3049965	2.83%	0	0	0	0%	0
6	1986	3863598	11.77%	0	0	0	0%	0
7	1988	4100000	2.97%	0	1226	1226	0%	0
8	1990	4175000	0.91%	7456	1286	8742	75.4%	82.857
9	1992	4336000	1.89%	8056	1405	9461	3.94%	2.084
10	1994	4520000	2.08%	8433	1580	10013	2.83%	1.36
11	1996	4712000	2.08%	8719	1698	10417	1.97%	0.947
12	1998	4923000	2.19%	9189	1622	10811	1.85%	0.844
13	2000	5113409	1.9%	9627	1688	11315	2.27%	1.194
14	2002	5310598	1.89%	9999	1732	11731	1.8%	0.952
15	2004	5503192	1.78%	10357	1755	12112	1.59%	0.893
16	2006	5690672	1.67%	10778	1975	12753	2.57%	1.538

LDS membership and unit data 1976-2000 from Mark Davies' WW-LDS.

Proportionality Ratio is the ratio of the increase in units to the increase in membership. A ratio of 1 means that membership and church units are growing at the same rate.

National Population and LDS Growth Rates

Current LDS Membership Growth Rate: 1.67%

Current LDS Unit Growth Rate: 2.57%

Annual Population Growth Rate: 0.91%

Relative LDS Population Growth Rate (LDS membership growth rate minus population growth rate): 0.75%

Intrinsic Challenges and Opportunities of the Church of Jesus Christ

Convert Retention and Member Activity

While LDS activity rates in the United States are among the highest of any country in the world, less than half of members on the rolls are active. The Encyclopedia of Mormonism reports: 'Canada, the South Pacific, and the United States average between 40 percent and 50 percent [attendance at sacrament meeting].' (Source: Encyclopedia of Mormonism, edited by Daniel H. Ludlow, 1992, 4:1527.)

Marginal retention of new converts, and especially potential priesthood holders, remains a serious challenge:

'For the U.S. as a whole, only 59% of baptized males ever receive the Melchizedek Priesthood. In the South Pacific, the figure drops to 35%; in Great Britain, 29%. In Mexico (with almost 850,000 members) the figure is 19%; and in Japan, only 17% of the male members ever make it past the Aaronic Priesthood.' (source: Lowell C. Bennion and Lawrence Young, Dialogue, Spring 1996, p.19.)

[Eva]

Posting this article is an attack on Santorum. It was already posted by the Romney supporters before you reposted it.

Whether you intended it as an attack or not, that is what your are doing. It is the same tactic used against Rick Perry by the Paulers. Find a radical Mormon hater and tie him to Santorum, then demand that Santorum denounce one of his own supporters.

It not only hurts Santorum, it damages the whole social conservative movement.

[Eva]

I never said that you did. It was a Romney supporter, I think that the name was B4Ranch.

[T Minus Four]

Blah, blah, blah. You’re the only one who doesn’t get it.