Frank Rich asks an inconvenient question that has been raised here before (by me and others), but never satisfactorily answered.
Pushed over the edge by his peers’ polite chatter about Mitt Romney’s sermon on “Faith in America,” Mr. [Lawrence] O’Donnell [appearing on the McLaughlin Group] branded the [Romney religion] speech “the worst” of his lifetime. Then he went on a rampage about Mr. Romney’s Mormon religion, shouting (among other things) that until 1978 it was “an officially racist faith.”
That claim just happens to be true. As the jaws of his scandalized co-stars dropped around him, Mr. O’Donnell then raised the rude question that almost no one in Washington asks aloud: Why didn’t Mr. Romney publicly renounce his church’s discriminatory practices before they were revoked? As the scion of one of America’s most prominent Mormon families, he might have made a difference. It’s not as if he was a toddler. By 1978 – the same year his contemporary, Bill Clinton, was elected governor in Arkansas – Mr. Romney had entered his 30s.
Rich hypothesizes an interesting answer:
The answer is simple. Mr. Romney didn’t fight his church’s institutionalized apartheid, whatever his private misgivings, because that’s his character. Though he is trying to sell himself as a leader, he is actually a follower and a panderer, as confirmed by his flip-flops on nearly every issue.
True? We’ll never know. But it’s not a bad explanation. I don’t think Romney is a racist (though I do think his recent anti-Muslim comments tread dangerously close to a different line). But if he’s not, and if he wasn’t in the 1970s, what else other than Rich’s theory explains Romney’s apparent failure to speak up?
By the way, contrary to the contentions of some who have tried to give Romney a pass for being a college student at the time, Romney was 31 years old when the Mormons reversed their racist rules. And it does appear that the silence from not-so-young Mitt on the issue was deafening. Now, maybe it’s true that he wept when he heard the news of the change in policy, and maybe it’s not. If it’s true, those may have been tears of relief as much as anything else, as the ambitious 31-year-old saw an otherwise-insurmountable obstacle to his political future evaporate.
You can watch video of the shoutfest on McLaughlin at this link.
He continued his passionately bigoted rant at the Huffington Post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…
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the aspects of O’Donnell’s post that are “bigoted”? The excerpt (along with the rest of his post) seems to relate to historical fact and to what Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and others actually said.
The nature and tone of everything he said. He’s frothing at the mouth just as homophobes do about gays, or racists do about blacks, or anti-semites do about jews. It is bigotry that’s plain to see.
that’s not an answer. And it’s nothing like what your posited racists, anti-semites, and homophobes say — they generally say things that are not true, or that relate back to their own belief systems. O’Donnell’s questions, in contrast, appear to be based on historical events, and on statements of Smith, Young, and others. I again ask if you can point to anything he says that is not accurate.
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p>Would it be ok to ask a Catholic candidate whether they really believe in transubstantiation? And would DNA testing on the Eucharist shake their faith?
You’re just coming up with new questions that aren’t really that relevant.
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p>As for your question on transsubstantiation, well, why not? What’s so terribly off-limits about asking people what they believe, especially if they make those beliefs a cornerstone of their run for public office? Romney, for example, proclaimed in his speech that he believes Jesus Christ to be the Son of God, and said in a recent debate that he believes the Bible to be the “word of God.” Having put that in the public square, as it were, why shouldn’t he expect to be questioned on it?
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p>No, of course I don’t believe that Romney’s faith “disqualifies” him to be president. But neither does it excuse him from answering legitimate questions.
…transubstantiation is not a political issue, weird though it might be. Racism is a political issue. But the issue with Romney isn’t the racism of what his preferred “establishment of religion” was, it is what he did or failed to do to try to correct it. What did he do?
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p>Please do not let yourself get diverted from what the real issue is.
You want to willfully ignore how he is acting, which is absolutely relevant.
…do you really believe that pointing out inconvenient truths is bigotry? That’s positively silly. Romney was in a position to at least try to do something to reverse his church’s bigotry and he did nothing about it. Romney is a go-along to get-along kind of guy, and Rich is exactly correct, Romney is a follower, not a leader, and he is definitely a panderer. It’s obvious that Romney will say anything to try to get elected. Like a used car salesman, who tries to discourage the prospective customer from kicking the car’s tires before a sale.
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p>BTW, your attempted parallel to anti-gay bigotry is positively inane (a polite word for “stupid”). As far as I know, there was no Mr. FirstGay who founded the Cult of Homosexuality. Quite unlike Mormonism, which was founded by a couple of crooks.
When a homophobe points to CDC stats does that make them less of a bigot? Is their hatred of gays then justified?
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p>Is it ok for O’Donnell to froth at the mouth and hate Mormons because Brigham Young didn’t denounce slavery 150 years ago?
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p>Clearly the guy has issues above and beyond mere disagreement. Using certain things which may be true to justify his bigotry should not be tolerated.
bigotry and aversion against certain individuals. And between belittling a belief (whether or not an “establishment of religion) and aversion against individuals who may hold to those beliefs. Your inability to do that is interesting, but it’s not my problem.
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p>I saw the episode of the McLaughlin Group that you are referring to, and your characterization of O’Donnell “frothing at the mouth” is positively ridiculous. He was, indeed, forceful and passionate in his commentary, which is rare for programs of that type. But he was exactly correct in the facts that he related. Same with his HuffPost column. That is supposed to be bigotry? Would it be bigotry for me to mention the RCCi’s (Roman Catholic Church, Inc’s) murders during the Albigensian Heresy? Or their support for the 30 Years War? And that’s even ignoring their support for the Near East Crusades.
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p>Your formulation of “bigotry” is nothing more than “your opposition to my bigotry is in and of itself bigotry.” I’m sorry, but that’s dumb.
If I were to rephrase what you said to be forceful and passionate like O’Donnell, it would come out to something like this:
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p>The Catholic Church murdered Cathars. Catholicism is an evil religion. Ted Kennedy has never denounced the murder of the Cathars or the Pope. When will Ted Kennedy reject the murderous Catholic Church?
On the other hand, I can’t tell that JFKennedy wore his religion on his sleeve. Unlike Romney. JFK made it a point not to do so. Ted has also made it a point to not do so.
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p>Both in stark contrast to Mitt.
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p>BTW, the Albigensian Heresy was in something like the 11th and 12 centuries and the 30 years war was in 1618-48. So it would have been a little difficult for Ted to have criticized the RCCi when it was going on. The Mormon’s racist policies were in full place until at least 1978, which would have given Mitt plenty of time to criticize it.
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p>There’s a bit of a difference.
Romney graduated from Harvard in 1975 – three years before the doctrinal change was made. As a person 3 years out of school, working in his first job, please advise what ‘position’ he was in to call out for change. If he held a press conference as a regular person, would the Globe have bothered to show up?
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p>But others do have a chance to speak out about the current practices of their denominations due to their public positions.
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p>Is John Kerry in a position to do something about his sexist church – which has not changed, but still bars women from the clergy?
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p>Is Hillary in a position to do something about her church’s stance to ban gays from the clergy? As it happens, she WAS in a position to vote, as a church member, in the 2004 Synod, open to all members. Did she bother?
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p>Are sexism and homophobia poltical issues according to your skewed criteria?
Did Romney have any kind of leadership roll yet in his church by 1978? He mentions that his dad marched with MLK. Did Mitt likewise raise the question of blacks=legit people amongst people in his stake or even non-Mormons in his social circle? I see no reason why he couldn’t have if he had wanted to. Yet I doubt he did, or he would be telling us about his own experiences, not those of his parents.
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p>You laugh at the notion of the press taking him seriously had he wished to make a press release. His dad hadn’t been out of governement service very long at that point. He very well may have gotten noticed. But in any case, if he were a man of conscience on this matter at that time, he needn’t have contacted the press to make a difference. As I mentioned above, pushing the envelope from within would have mattered, if not to the LDS, at least to his conscience and putative sense of social justice. Alas, he did nothing.
In 1978 Romney was already a VP at Bain and at least an Elder in his church. He may already have been a High Priest by then — I just don’t have the energy to wade through the Globe piece.
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p>The real issue has that Romney has NEVER publicly questioned any aspect of the LDS doctrine. He also, by his own admission, did not work within the church to try and get this reversed.
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p>He used the “my dad marched with MLK” line when Russert nailed him on “Meet the Press.” I think it just makes the younger Romney’s inaction worse. As we learned from his “I was never pro-choice statement” on the same show, his parents were cut from different stuff. Ultimately, it’s about character. Running against Shannon o’Brien, he dramatically invoked his mother’s stance on abortion. Now that it’s no longer politically expedient, he’s denied even her.
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to force change to happen, obviously. But if a chorus of voices from prominent Mormon families, such as Romney’s, had spoken out sooner about the racist policy, perhaps it would have been changed sooner.
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p>Regarding your other questions, which are fair:
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Check out Saturday’s “Meet The Press.” Romney gives yet another interview in which he says he will never question his church’s doctrine. (It’s worth noting that Romney’s latest position on choice is actually more conservative than that of his church).
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p>The whole interview is worth watching. Russert even nails him for raising every fee in sight while crowing about not raising taxes.
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p>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30…
the way gays do about homophobes, blacks do about racists, or jews do about anti-semites?
You should know by now that’s not how it works.
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p>See, whenever anyone questions, critiques, or even so much as mentions, in anything but purely adulatory terms, a Republican’s (or pretty much any conservative’s) religious beliefs, or suggests those religious beliefs shouldn’t necessarily be considered the primary qualification for elective office, or argues they shouldn’t be taught as fact in science classes, that’s bigotry. (There’s a possible exception if another conservative does it — I haven’t seen a lot of right-wingers calling Huckabee a bigot for his comments on Mormonism, but perhaps I’ve just missed it.)
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p>Whenever a conservative ignores the existence of non-Big-3 religions, makes sweeping, inaccurate generalizations about other faiths, suggests that the non-religious aren’t to be trusted and perhaps don’t deserve to be citizens, or accuses a US Congressman who happens to be Muslim of “working for the enemy,” that’s “perfectly understandable,” or “an interesting point” or “a valid question.”
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p>I hope this clears things up.
Thanks, I had obviously forgotten. 🙂
It’s funny how casually you all dismiss his attitude.
I submit that it’s exactly as “funny” as how casually conservatives dismiss the attitudes of (say) Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, et alia toward anyone and everyone who’s (for example) non-white, Muslim, female, etc.
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p>I haven’t read all of O’Donnell’s piece, so maybe he is, in fact, being a jerk about this. And personally (though I hesitate to say this; no doubt you’ll choose to read “personally” as “I speak for all liberals in saying this”), my primary objection to religious intolerance is that it’s almost always on behalf of another religion, and I see no particular reason to consider one batch of superstitions superior to another. But unless you’re getting around to declaiming on how shabbily Warren Jeffs has been treated, I don’t think there’s a very strong case to be made that Mormons generally are unfairly persecuted for their beliefs by the mean nasty liberals.
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p>In fact, the broader “liberals are the real bigots!!1!” meme you’re aligning yourself with here is just too ridiculous for words. It’s sufficiently transparent in its falsity that it’s hard to see any possible reasons for your parroting that line, other than, on the one hand, a cynical attempt to appropriate the vocabulary of victimhood and thereby shame those of us who actually care about the welfare and life prospects of people who aren’t rich white Christian men into going along with the conservative program, or on the other hand, abject stupidity.
Wikipedia offers an excellent definition: A bigot is a prejudiced person who is intolerant of opinions, lifestyles, or identities differing from his or her own.
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p>In the video clip, O’Donnell says that Mormonism offers, “a demented Scientology-like notion of what was going on in heaven before the creation of the earth,” and that it is a “ridiculous religion.”
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p>Those statements suggest bigotry because they are gross generalizations presented in emotional terms that appear to reflect prejudice, rather than tolerance and an interest in reasoned discourse.
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p>If O’Donnell knows what was going on in heaven before the creation of the earth, or if he is able to find a religion that is not deemed, “ridiculous,” by someone, somewhere, I’ll reconsider my opinion.
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p>I do think Romney should explain how he could be a member of the Mormon Church for a decade as an adult when the church’s dogma maintained that black people were cursed by God.
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p>Interestingly, Patrick Buchanan comes across in this discussion as the most sensible person on the panel. He pointed out that just because his grandfather had slaves did not make him pro-slavery, and just because Christians justified slavery for centuries, did not mean he, as a Christian, supports slavery today.
“A bigot is a prejudiced person who is intolerant of opinions, lifestyles, or identities differing from his or her own.”
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p>Sounds like a valid description of those of you who describe your distaste for Christians and their beliefs.
I think pers-1756 probably shouldn’t have used the word “bigoted,” but I think it’s wrong to dismiss his concern. Every religion that I know of makes truth claims that seem outlandish to outsiders. But I think people are willing to challenge the truth of Mormon doctrine in public in a way that they aren’t willing to challenge the truth of a mainline Christian denomination or of Judaism. For example, when Senator Lieberman ran, I don’t recall anyone making an issue of Orthodox Judaism on what to outsiders must look like sex discrimination (no women rabbis, men and women worship separately, many commandments binding on men only, daily prayer that God has not “made me a woman,” etc.). Likewise with Catholic candidates and the all-male priesthood.
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p>Look, I’m not a Mormon, but I think it’s important to treat the religion that several million Americans hold as respectfully as we treat religions whose outlandish claims have had the chance, over thousands of years, to acquire respectability.
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p>What makes Romney a special case is that “faith,” whatever that means, has been a centerpiece of his campaign. So maybe it is fair to challenge a “faith” candidate on the details of his faith. But again, it seems to me that a fundamentalist Christian or an Orthodox Jew would receive a more respectful hearing on issues of feminism and the roles of the sexes than would a Mormon on the issue of race, and this despite the fact that many fundamentalists continue to hold sexist views while the LDS church has formally abandoned its racist views.
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p>TedF
You don’t think he’s a racist?
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p>It’s pretty clear he’s not a fan of brown people, be they immigrants or muslims (and let’s add in gays, because Willard is a huge fan of homophobic policies). Sometimes in this country, because racism is such a difficult problem to face, a lot of these scumbags are able to push through racist policies one after the other. Until we start calling people out on racist behaivor, we’re never going to stop being a racist, homophobic country. It shouldn’t take a macaca moment to call a duck a duck.
Mitt seems to like brown people as long as they’re doing his landscaping.
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What I don’t say here, I say here.
remember, he says he’s into “toleration”. so he merely tolerates those brown illegal aliens who rake his leaves for pennies. god bless ‘im!
To wit Mo Udall, a member of a prominent Mormon and a prominent politician at the time lobbied intensively for the LDS to lift their ban on black communicants, and his lobbying was a major influence in the final decision. He had political courage.
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p>Though to be fair at the time Mitt Romney was not particularly at the same level of promenance as Mo Udall but other members of his family were and they shouldve spoken out.
In 1977, Harry Reid was Lt. Gov. of Nevada.
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p>Where is HIS condemnation of his church from that pulpit that he had?
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p>It shouldn’t take a macaca moment to call a duck a duck.
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p>It actually makes it a bit easier to call the duck a duck.
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p>There are something on the order of 300M people in the US, probably 200M (more or less) of working age. Regardless of sex, age, sexual orientation, blah, blah, blah, why is the US government not making use of the potential work force that is available in the US?
Mr. O’Donnel’s attack on Mormonism was far too vitriolic to be considered merely an honest and fair exchange of ideas.
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p>With his description of Mormonism as as “demented”, “a racist faith”, “a ridiculous religion” he took it straight into the realm of bigotry.
In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that Lawrence O’Donnel is a bigot.
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p>Even Eleanor Clift found these comments by a fellow liberal to be outlandish and over the top.
The great-grandfather comment was simply ignorant.
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p>And yes, I have criticized Gov. Huckabee for his bigoted comments.
“I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind.”
below is an interesting comment from partiotboy over at Pam’s House Blend. anyone here know enough about mormonism to rate the truthiness of it? after all, mitt didn’t explicitly say that his tears at hearing the news in 1978 were tears of joy for equality…