The Book of Romney?

In the last few days, a new issue has emerged in the GOP presidential debate. A Texas minister called the LDS church a cult and said that Mormons (like Mitt Romney) were not Christians. Since the minister says he is a supporter of Rick Perry for president, this charge has been reported in much of the media as a disguised charge from the Perry campaign. Indeed, now all the other candidates are being asked about it.

Let's start with the easy points: the minister can say what he wants; this is still America. Okay, that was the easy stuff. Now let's move on to the rest.

1) Just because a minister who supports Perry says something, it does not become a position of the Perry campaign. Perry never endorsed what was said. He was not there when it was said. He had no connection to it. This does not seem to be enough for some in the media, however. I saw John King on CNN argue that Perry had to step forward and condemn the statement. Strangely, I do not recall King saying anything about the 20 years of rants that president Obama heard in his church in Chicago from Reverend Wright. Those were rants that were filled with hate on a frequent basis. Obama sat in the pews and claimed that he never heard any of them. There was a true connection there unlike the Perry one now.

2) What the minister said about the Mormon church is just stupid. What is the point of creating differences among people when the key to success for the country is to create unity. Catholics and Protestants have different beliefs on some key points. It was enought for religious wars to engulf Europe for centuries over these issues. Fighting was continuing in Ireland just a decade or so ago. It is fighting from which no one prospers, however. If we want to create differences among people, we can all just follow the Obama method of turning the poor against the rich, the lower middle class against ther upper middle class, the worker against the employer and so on. Class warfare is much like sectarian violence; society loses and only those few who are in power win.

3) There is nothing in the Mormon beliefs of Romney or Huntsmann that would reduce their ability to be good leaders. The minister in Texas had nothing that he could point to here except to announce that the Mormons were not true Christians. That is just another way of saying that these guys are not just like you and me. It is not a comment on their fitness to be president. Indeed, this whole issue is a minor current in America today. Again, let's look at Obama. Obama's race is a lot better known than Romney's religion and it did not stop him from winning. My guess is that there are only a few people who will vote on the basis of religion.

4) The media loves this attack and is using it as a weapon against all of the GOP candidates. It plays right into the template of the intolerant conservatives. For a few weeks we were hearing ridiculous charges in the media that Herman Cain was a racist even though he is black. Now the reporters are breathlessly repeating what the candidates have to say about the Mormon stuff. for example, today the news is that both Michelle Bachmann and herman Cain said that they were not going to comment on the issue. Bachmann said that the American people would decide on the basis of jobs and the economy and not religious beliefs. To me, that seems fine, but the spin in two articles that I read was that Bachmann was throwing gasoline on the fire by "refusing" to condemn the Texas minister. Of course, we can go back to Reverend Wright who Obama did not condemn.

I wish we could elect a president without all of the nonsense that comes with the election.