Brian Schweitzer continues to be awesome

[Zioneer]

Entirely inappropriate. There was a perfect response: Romney's dad was from an isolated anglophone community, culturally entirely unconnected w/ the rest of Mexico and, thus, is not at all Hispanic for any real purpose. This is, in fact, true: no Hispanic Mexican would recognize Romney as one, nor would be more likely to vote for him based on his father's place of birth, so bringing that up is pure demagogy.

The marriage customs of his ancestors, though, are no more relevant here than the marriage customs of Old Testament are for the Jewish politicians - or else we'd have to worry about Abraham's relationship w/ Hagar.

This, basically. I still support Schweitzer, but his comment was incredibly inappropriate and really stupid, also offensive to me and my faith. I understand why he made it, but he could have worded it better.

And honestly, whatever my fellow liberals/moderates/etc say about my faith can never be as vicious as the religious right, since not only do the religious right say the same thing, but their theological ancestors (i.e, the fundamentalist preachers in the mid 1800s) are the ones who drove Mormons out to Utah in the first place. So it's not that offensive to me, as a Mormon progressive.

[Zioneer]

And honestly, whatever my fellow liberals/moderates/etc say about my faith can never be as vicious as the religious right, since not only do the religious right say the same thing, but their theological ancestors (i.e, the fundamentalist preachers in the mid 1800s) are the ones who drove Mormons out to Utah in the first place. So it's not that offensive to me, as a Mormon progressive.

Uh, no, it's the Brian Schweitzers of the world whose actual biological ancestors did that, and Methodists and Baptists are not the same thing.

Oh, what I meant was that those who murdered, attacked, and ranted against Mormons in the 1800s were in effect, the religious ancestors of the religious right today, by virtue of both being intolerant towards towards non-their-specific-brand-of-Protestantism. I wasn't saying anything about anybody's literal ancestors, just the kinds of people they indirectly draw their bigotry from.

I wasn't saying anything about any specific religion, just that the anti-Mormon preachers in Missouri and Illinois (the Missouri ones especially, since they literally pillaged and raped the Mormon settlement of Far West) draw upon similar kinds of bigotry to the rhetoric that the ultra-zealous fringe religious right does today. The ones today are non-violent, but they have the same attitude towards Mormonism; they think it's a dangerous cult that must be stopped.

[Zioneer]

I still can't get over the fact that in 68 Romney's dad ran for President but he was born in a polygamous commune in Mexico and no one made a deal. lol

People cared more about his opposition to Vietnam (before it was cool to do so). Plus, he didn't really trumpet his faith like candidates do today. I doubt most people knew that George Romney was a Mormon born in Mexico (to two US citizens, by the way).

Besides, Nixon was the one responsible for engineering Romney's downfall (if I recall correctly, Romney was the frontrunner before Nixon did his thing), and as a Quaker, Nixon was probably a bit hesitant to target Romney on grounds of religion when a much easier line of attack was provided by Romney's "brainwashing" comment.

[Zioneer]

Well guess what...

there is a world of difference between bashing ones' particular faith or religion and standing up for a moral principle. 

The Mormon church is a religious organization but it is also a political machine. It's at least as open to criticism as the whole Jeremiah Wright thing. What were your thoughts on the Jeremiah Wright thing?

 

Might I say that the Mormon Church has always stood up for and stood by America, in good times and bad.

Note, I am not saying one thing about Obama's faith.  He says he is a Protestant Christian, and that's good enough for me, no questions asked.

Fair enough.

I will also concede that LDS has never, ever been in any way anti-American. Its patriotism is unimpeachable, as is its commitment to what it sees, often/usually correctly, as the needs of its members. I may have a problem with other things and think that they're legitimate bases for criticism, but I'd never deny those basic facts.

As a Mormon Democrat, thank you for that. I do detest either side insulting my church (though yeah, we've done a lot of questionable things, including Prop .