YES, I'M EXTREMELY PREJUDICED TOWARD TELLING THE TRUTH.

Romney Bid Was a Crucible for Mormons

By RACHEL ZOLL

The Associated Press

February 9, 2008

Mitt Romney isn't the only casualty in his failed presidential bid.

The Mormon church, yearning for broad acceptance, also took a beating.

Extremists denounced Romney's campaign as a Mormon plot to take over

the country. Some Evangelicals feared that a Mormon in the White House

would draw more converts to his faith.

Mormon practices were picked apart, even ones that had been abandoned

long ago such as polygamy. Romney tried to focus on politics, but was

often asked about sacred Mormon undergarments.

"It is prejudice," said Richard Bushman, an emeritus professor at

Columbia University, who is a leading historian and devout Mormon.

"Underlying all these questions is that these beliefs are basically

crazy so you've got to explain them to us."

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints anticipated some of

the backlash and tried to get ahead of it. Well before the former

Massachusetts governor officially announced his candidacy, Mormon

officials started traveling the country, speaking with reporters and

editorial writers about the LDS church and its political neutrality.

The goal was to protect the church. But nonpartisanship handicapped

the denomination when it needed a vigorous defense.

"I'm not questioning the policy of neutrality. That's not in any

doubt," said Michael Otterson, the church's media relations director.

"But I think the very reality is that we've had to be very careful

about choosing our words and not appearing to either be supporting or

not supporting a particular candidate."

Before Romney ran, Mormons thought they were generally accepted in the

mainstream, especially after their previous success in the world

spotlight: the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics.

Yet, in November, half of respondents to an Associated Press-Yahoo

poll said they had some problems supporting a Mormon presidential

candidate. Among white evangelicals, more than half expressed

reservations about backing a Latter-day Saint.

"I was surprised at the level of intensity and sometimes flat out

animosity," said Lowell C. Brown, a Los Angeles attorney who is

Mormon. "I had no idea. I'm in my 50s, I've been a Mormon all my life,

I've lived in L.A. for 25 years, and it floored me."

Many Christians said they were raising legitimate theological

concerns, not Mormon-bashing.

The news service of the Southern Baptist Convention, which considers

the LDS church a cult, ran a six-part series through December

explaining why they don't consider Mormonism to be Christian. (They

also profiled a distant Romney relative who is Protestant and manages

a Southern Baptist-affiliated bookstore in Salt Lake.)

In just one example of the practices that set Mormons apart, LDS

church founder Joseph Smith revised -- and in his view corrected --

parts of the Bible.

Brown said it was "nonsense" to consider questions about Romney's

faith simply a dialogue about religion. Mormons were especially

outraged when GOP presidential contender Mike Huckabee, a Southern

Baptist pastor, asked whether Mormons consider Jesus and the devil

brothers. Latter-day Saints say Huckabee's question is usually raised

by those who wish to smear the Mormon faith rather than clarify

doctrine.

"If you're making a decision about whether or not to vote for someone

because of their religion, you're flirting with bigotry," said Brown.

He monitored the commentary on his blog Article VI, named for the

constitutional provision barring any religious test for public office.

Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary, a prominent

evangelical school in Pasadena, Calif., said some Christian

conservatives consider Mormonism not just a questionable faith, but

also a rival political force. He lived in Michigan in the 1960s, when

Romney's father, George, was governor there. At that time,

evangelicals weren't deeply involved in politics. Many supported

George Romney.

"What's going on when his son runs and all of a sudden there's this

overt hostility that came out, which did not come out toward his

father," said Mouw, who is part of a group of evangelical and Mormon

scholars who meet to discuss their theological disagreements. "I'm

kind of ashamed of the way that a lot of traditional Christians have

handled this."

Yet, Mormons say some good has come from the attacks. Romney's

candidacy pulled the church even further into the public square.

Mormon leaders posted videos on YouTube explaining their faith. A

church elder, recently speaking to Mormon college students, urged

young people to post about the Latter-day Saints on blogs -- a major

move for a denomination with a history of quietly answering its

outside critics. After Romney's Dec. 6 speech in Texas defending his

faith, a Mormon leader went on al-Jazeera television, the Quatar-based

network, to discuss the church.

"Gov. Romney has, perhaps without intending to do so, rendered the

church a service," said Robert Millet, a scholar of the church and

professor at the LDS-owned Brigham Young University. "It's served as a

kind of wakeup call for Saints themselves to the fact that we're not

as well understood as we think we are. How can it be the case that

Gov. Romney and his feelings about Christ and his feelings about

religion have been so little understood?"

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