Posted on 02/24/2007 7:42:04 PM PST by deaconjim
BOSTON (Reuters) - As he seeks to become the first Mormon U.S. president, Republican Mitt Romney faces a dilemma in courting conservative Christians who often dismiss his religion as a cult but now could decide his political fate.
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Should he address his religion head-on in a speech, as John F. Kennedy did in 1960 to Texas Baptists while campaigning to become the first Roman Catholic U.S. president?
Or should he resist debate over a religion that evangelicals, who are key to winning the Republican primaries, often view with suspicion?
"It's a delicate balance, but I don't think the strategy of ignoring this is going to work," said Boston University professor Julian Zelizer. "At the moment he seems not to accept it as a legitimate issue and hopes that it goes away."
The Harvard-educated former Massachusetts governor has cast himself as a more conservative alternative to favorites John McCain (news, bio, voting record), an Arizona senator, and Rudolph Giuliani, the former New York mayor.
That pitch is complicated by his inconsistency on social issues such as gay rights and abortion rights, which he once supported but now opposes, and misconceptions about Mormonism and its history of racism and polygamy.
The issue popped up most recently in Florida, a powerful state in the Republican nominating process where a heckler at a retirement community attacked his faith. "Sir, you are a pretender. You do not know the Lord," the man said.
Romney, a polished communicator and a former bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, replied: "One of the great things about this great land is that we have people of different faiths and different persuasions.
"And I'm convinced that the nation does need ... to have people of different faiths but we need to have a person of faith lead the country."
'RELIGIOUS VIEWS'
Damon Linker, a former professor at the Mormon-sponsored Brigham Young University in Utah and author of "Theocons: Secular America Under Siege," said Romney's response in Florida is exactly why he needs to address the issue.
"The religious right wants a candidate's religious views to be at the center of their identity and political agenda. If you are going to do that, then the candidate's religious views have to be open for scrutiny," he said.
The Salt Lake City, Utah-based church is one of the world's fastest-growing and affluent religions.
It bans alcohol, tobacco, tea and coffee, maintains that there is no eternal hell, the dead can be baptized and God speaks through living apostles and prophets such as the church's current president, Gordon Hinckley.
"What would it mean to have a Mormon as president who would believe that in an office building in downtown Salt Lake City there is a man who is the living mouthpiece of God on earth who speaks with the authority of God?" Linker asked.
Romney, 59, has called polygamy "bizarre" and does not drink, smoke or swear. He is married to his high-school sweetheart, Ann -- which sits better with conservative Christians than Giuliani's two failed marriages and McCain's divorce.
Romney is the fifth Mormon to seek the White House. His father, former Michigan governor George Romney, ran in 1968 and the church's founder, Joseph Smith, was shot to death by a mob during his 1844 presidential campaign.
But not since Kennedy has a candidate's religion been such an issue. In a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, 35 percent of respondents said they would be "less likely" to vote for a candidate who is Mormon.
Kennedy made a point of easing concerns about his deference to a foreign Catholic prelate, and offered to resign if he was ever forced "to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest."
Richard Land, a top official in Southern Baptist Convention in Tennessee, said Romney would be wise to follow suit.
"I don't think the Mormonism issue is a deal-breaker, certainly not for most evangelicals," he said. "But I do think he needs to address the issue." Romney's wife, too, has urged a Kennedy-esque speech. "I'm actually anxious for that to happen," she told ABC News.
A Romney spokesman said no such speech was scheduled.
Mormans are very nice people, great neighbors, but they are not Christians and shouldn't pretend to be so.
It isn't his religion that has him in trouble with the religious right. It's his history of liberalism and a suspicion that his current social conservatism is simply a ploy to get votes.
Or does he? My problem is that he has really vascillated on major moral issues...some of which have set him in opposition to his faith at earlier times. Now, regarding abortion, gay support, gun control, etc., he seems to be changing his tune based on the political environment he is seeking and I cannot countenance that at all.
For someone doing that, I do not care if the are Mormon (LDS), Baptist, Catholic, agnostic, or atheist, or anything else...a whole lot more time will have to pass with him sticking to his supposed new found beliefs before I would be willing to vote for him.
Frankly, I don't really have a problem with him being a Morman. It can't be any worse than Jimmy Carter and Bubba Clinton's version of being a Southern Baptist.
I just don't see any reason to vote for him. I'm not sure I can trust him to maintain a position on anything if the political winds shift. We certainly don't need anymore of that in the White House.
careful, that will get you a bigot label around here.
but since I already have that label in this issue, I'll say I agree with you!
Very true. That is evangelicals' essential problem with Romney - not only is he not a Christian, he actually belongs to a cult.
That's my issue with it. I wouldn't vote for someone who was Jehovah Witness, or a Moonie, or Islamic for that matter - that doesn't mean I would vote for someone who's Baptist, or Nazarene or any other denomination - but cults are completely out of the running in my book.
You do realise that your axiomatic statement is actually part of the debate. And that the same debate DOES exist regarding mormonism (although I can't for the life of me figure out why).
I say that Jesus was who He said He was. That makes me a Christian. Mormons don't believe that He was who He said He was. That means that they are not Christians.
That being said, the Mormons that I know are good, decent people and I don't really have a problem with voting for one for President. I just don't think Romney is the one I would be willing to vote for.
Well, at least the thread isn't on the Religion Forum, I'd be zotted by now.:)
Funny how nobody's pressing Obama (a.k.a. Buttcrack Hussein) about his muslim faith. Hillary hit him a little and it was a story for a day. I'd be a lot more worried about having an islamic in the Whitehouse.
RC is cola too.
Not a cult, a cola.
I wouldn't anyone's religion against them when running for office, any more than an atheist would be denied the presidency for atheism.
What? Really? Well, piss off, then.
Wow, that really clears things up.
I'd rather have Romney living next door to me than most Christians. Your post is really dumb.
Huh?
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