Mitts Off
American anti-Mormon bias trumps bias vs. blacks, women. Boston Herald:
As former Bay State Gov. Mitt Romney prepares to deliver a pivotal speech on religion tomorrow, a new study finds that Americans are more biased against Mormons than they are against blacks and women.
The study, released yesterday, also urges Romney to “demystify” his religion if he is to gain support for the presidency.
The survey, conducted last month over the Internet by researchers at Vanderbilt and Claremont Graduate universities, measured overall prejudice against Mormons, how best to combat it and its potential impact on the primary and general elections.
Romney is scheduled to deliver the much-debated and much-anticipated speech, titled “Faith in America,” tomorrow in Texas. His campaign has indicated it will focus on promoting religion in general and will not be “a primer on Mormon theology.”
But according to the study, Romney could benefit from providing “clear, accurate information to dispel misconceptions about the Mormon religion.”
“Simple appeals for religious tolerance do not win over support for Romney,” according to a summary of the study.
Despite the study, Romney’s campaign remained optimistic and on message. “The vast majority of people don’t elect a president based on what church they go to, but they do want to know if they share the same values,” said spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom. “Mitt Romney’s values are as American as you will find.”
…
The Vanderbilt study also found the powerful evangelical voting block is as dead set against Mormons as it is against atheists.
But only about half the nation even knows that Romney is a Mormon, according to the study. And those who do not know Romney is a Mormon are more biased upon learning of his religion.
Herald’s Joe Fitzgerald, To Foes, Mitt is Such a Man of Faith, It’s Scary:
Mitt Romney’s problem isn’t that he’s a Mormon; his problem, in the eyes of the crowd now nipping at his heels, is that he’sserious about it.
That makes him dangerous because it makes them uncomfortable.
When you know what you believe and why, and you’re not ashamed to have it known, faith is not a position you take on an issue; it’s a position you bring to an issue, reflecting values and beliefs that have stood the test of time because you’ve discovered they’ll work when nothing else will.
Herald’s Gelzinis, Time for Wooden Mitt to Loosen Up:
We already know what Mitt Romney won’t be talking about during tomorrow’s “moment of revelation.” Mitt won’t be telling us about how an angel named Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith in September 1823 and inspired him to translate “another testament of Jesus Christ” that had been written on a set of thin gold plates.
No, none of that. But then, offering us a deeper glimpse into Mormonism was never the real issue. Ultimately, his greatest challenge was being forced to “open up” and offer voters a glimpse into what is sometimes known as a soul.
…
And while Mitt Romney comes with a picture perfect, Hallmark set of accessories - the lovely, devoted wife, a picturesque brood of children and grandchildren - that pristine surface sheen forms a kind of impenetrable, emotionless shell. When it comes to passion, he’s got a tin ear under that perfect head of hair. Remember his boorish stab at humor when blindsided with a question about how he balanced his strong support for the war with his son’s avoidance of military service? Mitt’s instinctive response was to be glib. The greatest service his five strapping boys could perform for the country, he said, was drive a campaign Winnebago around Iowa for him.
It is no accident Willard Mitt Romney is the darling of the cynics, the talk show hosts who think government should be run with all the soul of a Home Depot. Now he finds himself stuck in a bottom-line moment that has nothing to do with a balance sheet.
Topics: pols
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:18 am on Wednesday, December 5, 2007
13 Responses to “Mitts Off”
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December 5th, 2007 at 10:14 am
This brings to mind John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign, when some elements were convinced that he would usher in papal control over the U.S. government.
December 5th, 2007 at 10:24 am
I don’t need “clear accurate” whatevers about the Mormon religion.
I read a little about Joseph Smith eons and eons ago, and was a little put off by some particulars of his personal story, but so what ?
I question the substance and worth of any candidate that puts forth his or her religious beliefs as some kind of foundation of moral substance for their qualifications or “value” for holding the office of President of the United States.
I don’t think religion or race or gender is germane to the reasons any given individual might aspire to become President of the United States.
I am especially put off if a candidate uses his or her religious belief structure to extol their own “virtues”.
December 5th, 2007 at 11:25 am
Yah. I always remember how John Kennedy was “unelectable” because he was Catholic. Or was until he won, anyway.
Large chunk of salt, IMO.
December 5th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Altho’ there was much brouhaha in the press at the time, JFK did not “appeal” to voters on the basis of his having a Catholic background.
He appealed on “other” grounds, maybe somewhat hyperbolic in and of themselves (”ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”), but he didn’t ask you to follow him or endorse him as a leader on some claim to personal moral “goodness”.
He wasn’t that naive.
Whereas now, “evangelicals” in Iowa support M. Huckabee as a function of his religious structure.
While we all know what happened recently to the leadership of the nation’s 30 million ! (that’s a helluva lot of people) evangelicals.
Ted Haggard.
December 5th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
I do not like religion to be mixed with politics. It threatens both institutions. For those who do not know their history and do not understand why Jefferson and others insisted on the separation of church and state, all one must do is look at Muslim theocracies. There is a reason why we call them medieval. During those centuries, Europe stagnated under a religious philosophy that counted concern with this world to be a sin–except of course for the religious leaders who amassed a fortune off the backs of those sinners. We are appalled at Islamic religious “justice” that punishes a woman for the crime of being gang raped, or the hanging of homosexuals, but medieval Europe was no better. We would be shocked at how religious Europeans were back then.
It is one of the things about Bush–among many others–that I do not like. He has instituted a specific place in government for religion–supported with taxpayer money. I don’t care how great the idea sounds to some people, there is nothing good about mixing government money with any private entity, and this includes business, science and education. There is no way to get around the fact that it gives power to politicians to play favorites all over the place and determine which ideas are acceptable, or that we end up with the corruption borne of power over people via money that isn’t owned by those using it as such. Politicians like to point their fingers at business for the role that money plays in politics, but never mention the fact that it is they who force businessmen and others to come hat in hand to beg for the favor of being allowed to do business. Then we get those dishonest parasites in business, science, education, and now religion, who would have no funds without government largess.
In case anyone thinks this is innocuous, I would remind you that we have now seen all three branches of our government explicitly censor political speech, all in the name of ending the corruption they have engendered by their power to pass laws limiting freedom in every sphere of life, justified by a supposedly conservative senator who stated that he isn’t concerned with the constitutional limits on the government.
It isn’t money that corrupts. It is the unearned that corrupts. We are paying these people to make beggars of us all.
December 5th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Sorry. I got carried away.
December 5th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Sorry. I got carried away.
Well I hope they bring you the hell back, we’d miss you.
December 5th, 2007 at 5:23 pm
He has instituted a specific place in government for religion–supported with taxpayer money. I don’t care how great the idea sounds to some people, there is nothing good about mixing government money with any private entity, and this includes business, science and education.
Could you clarify a little there ? I don’t know what place in government you’re referring to.
As for federal gov’t funding of embryonic stem cell research and GWB limiting that to already existing lines, I don’t think those decisions interfered significantly with anything but the yellers and screamers looking for (easy) federal funding for their research projects.
Very lately in the news is the idea that embryos won’t be needed if the technique to introduce genes into adult (stem) cells is widely applicable to return those cells to the potential and elasticity of embryonic stem cells.
In my view of the universe, GWB has never worn his religious foundation as ominously or offensively as Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.
I agree (who could not) with the points about Europe and Thos. Jefferson.
“History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose. ”
– Thomas Jefferson to Baron von Humboldt, 1813
December 6th, 2007 at 12:32 am
The Patriot Post
Founders’ Quote Daily
“It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of
Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits,
and humbly to implore his protection and favors.”
– George Washington (Thanksgiving Proclamation, 3 October 1789)
Reference: George Washington: A Collection, W.B. Allen, ed. (543)
__________
The Patriot Post
Founders’ Quote Daily
“To grant that there is a supreme intelligence who rules the
world and has established laws to regulate the actions of his
creatures; and still to assert that man, in a state of nature,
may be considered as perfectly free from all restraints of law
and government, appears to a common understanding altogether
irreconcilable. Good and wise men, in all ages, have embraced
a very dissimilar theory. They have supposed that the deity,
from the relations we stand in to himself and to each other, has
constituted an eternal and immutable law, which is indispensably
obligatory upon all mankind, prior to any human institution
whatever. This is what is called the law of nature….Upon this
law depend the natural rights of mankind.”
– Alexander Hamilton ()
_____________
The Patriot Post
Founders’ Quote Daily
“It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage,
and such only, as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty
is precedent both in order of time and degree of obligation, to
the claims of Civil Society. Before any man can be considered as
a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of
the Governor of the Universe.”
– James Madison (A Memorial and Remonstrance, 1785)
Reference: Our Sacred Honor, Bennett (327)
_____________
The Patriot Post
Founders’ Quote Daily
“It is the duty of all men in society, publicly, and at stated
seasons, to worship the SUPREME BEING, the great Creator
and Preserver of the universe. And no subject shall be hurt,
molested, or restrained, in his person, liberty, or estate, for
worshipping GOD in the manner most agreeable to the dictates of
his own conscience; or for his religious profession or sentiments;
provided he doth not disturb the public peace, or obstruct others
in their religious worship.”
– John Adams (Thoughts on Government, 1776)
Reference: The Works of John Adams, Charles Adams, ed., 221.
December 6th, 2007 at 1:18 am
I was speaking specifically of faith-based “charitable” payouts of federal monies. The government pays out money to religious charities, relying on them to do the work of helping people. This isn’t specifically a Christian program, but includes any tax-exempt religious organization. That is the premise, anyway. Your tax money is being spent, not on what you may think is important enough to spur your generosity, but on programs with which you may explicitly disagree. Of course, this is true of most spending, but religion has now joined the line standing with its hand out for government largess.
Stem-cell research is just one area where the government has attempted to steer research. The problem with this is that it tends to close any truly innovative work by delimiting the areas a scientist may research. There are, thankfully, labs that still do stem-cell research independent of government regulations. Their findings have been made despite government limits, not (as touted) because of them, with some of the most innovative work being done in other countries.
Anytime research is limited because of political considerations, we all lose.The most obvious instance of what can happen with government “science” is in the area of so-called climate change research. Scientists who are vocal in their disagreement with the “consensus” are loosing their grants.
I have some experience with research in medicine. The waste of funds, caused by changing parameters is enormous. In my own experience the research done in over 25 years of hormone replacement therapy was tossed out (at the death of the main research doctor, who had had the credentials and pull to do the work in the first place) because of pressures from the entrenched AMA backed researchers and government bureaucrats. Innovative work was lost, and further research was blocked. The money involved was mostly government grants. So much is based on the pull of the scientists and the politics of the moment. One thing that is not appreciated is that government money and government backed research labs kill off many private research labs. This is true not only in medicine, but in all the sciences. Take the pharmaceutical companies, who own most of the independent R&D labs left in the country, which are under relentless attack these days. As medicine becomes more socialized, especially as the government becomes the main purchaser of pharmaceuticals, all of us will lose because the government will set the perimeters for all research–including what diseases are chosen for research. One of the most obvious examples of what I’m talking about is in research into lung cancer. Even though the government, both state and federal, now tax smokers to an unbelievable level–monies which were supposed to go for research and health care–but which have not been spent on research into lung cancer, which is about the only cancer left that only has a five percent survival rate. Who cares. Smoking is evil anyway, right? Instead, we have glossy anti-smoking TV ads and ludicrous claims about second-hand smoke, which leads to further restrictions on individual freedoms. The bulk of the taxes so collected is spent by state governments on pork–earmarks made by politicians to garner votes. The nannies who brought us this situation are the ones who are now using that same scheme to legislate what we can eat and drink.
One area of grant money that is not well known is that which comes from charitable organizations such as the Pew Charitable Trust. For example, it was the Pew trust, along with several other like organizations, that was behind the phony grass-roots call for campaign finance reform. McCain-Feingold answered the call, which is a blatant abrogation of First Amendment limits on congress. Bush signed the damned thing and the Supreme Court gave it its stamp of approval. All three branches, and the checks and balances supposedly protecting us from such shananagans, failed us.
I understand the impetus for many religious people. The promiscuity of the left, who are turning out to be the biggest puritans since Plymouth, turned traditional American culture on end. People saw their daughters dressing like sluts and their sons emulating the worst of gangster culture and they naturally want to put an end to it. But attempting to engineer a culture’s ethics, whether by the left or the right, is a dangerous practice, as anyone with a child in school knows. It gives one group of people enormous power over all the rest and strips us all, not just of the responsibility for our own lives, but of even the concept of an individual owning his own life, with the liberty to plan long term, and act on those plans. In short, it enslaves all to all, and makes beggars of everyone. The disastrous results of this kind of thinking can be seen all through history. It is what our Founders fought against, and why they instituted the kind of government they did, based on the individual’s right to own his life, and limiting the government to the protection of that most basic of rights. That they made mistakes isn’t important, given the scope of their accomplishment when viewed through the lens of history.
I apologize if I seem to ramble all over the place here. One thing is tied to the rest. The enemies of freedom count on us not making these connections. (Plus, a comment isn’t an organized essay, now is it?)
December 6th, 2007 at 10:26 am
Robert, most of your quotations have to do with the derivation or origin of the rights of natural man.
Which rights or condition transcend manmade laws and are deemed to be integral to human beings as a function of their mere fact of existence. No (human) man grants them, no (human) man can revoke them. They inhere “in” the individual no matter what that individual’s condition or thinking is.
(so, as an aside, any religion that attempts to enslave a man’s thinking to its own Authority or precepts is going against natural law)
i>”Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.”
~James Madison
The Rights of Natural Man was the fundamental notion driving Jefferson and other authors of the Declaration and the Constitution. All men are created equal meaning the law of natural rights and having nothing to do with manmade laws.
The admonition of Madison & Hamilton et al. was that governments should honor this condition of the “natural man”, which premise informed their Federalist writings you quote.
Abraham Lincoln (no particular admirer of organized, formal religion) also makes reference to God’s providence in the Gettysburg Address.
And it is no way contradictory that Lincoln also said:
“The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.”
~Abraham Lincoln
December 6th, 2007 at 10:49 am
Your tax money is being spent, not on what you may think is important enough to spur your generosity, but on programs with which you may explicitly disagree.
There is a lot of government spending with which I vehemently disagree, and it isn’t limited to money to religious charities.
The government pays out money to religious charities, relying on them to do the work of helping people.
Did that practice happen under GWB ? Did it exist prior to his administration(s) ?
Their (stem cell) findings have been made despite government limits, not (as touted) because of them, with some of the most innovative work being done in other countries.
SC research has continued unabated in other countries. Even in this country, private labs and private money would not experience interference. Embryonic stem cell research has not, to date, shown a lot of promise, as you probably know. Which is one of the reasons “private” funding may have been less and “public” funding was sought by some researchers.
But the very fact of GWB limiting federal gov’t funding to existing lines (the reason, possibly “excuse” given) was that taxpayer money should not go to these endeavors. (the very argument you make above about how our tax dollars are used or mis-used is the argument GWB offered up relative to SCR.)
I am naturally squeamish about using embryos. I am also naturally squeamish about using animals in “research”.
As attributed to my old friend Bertrand Russell, something to the effect that “even if” we learn something about human biology through animal experimentation,/vivisection, what sort of huge psychological price has been paid ?
I feel exactly that way about “harvesting” embryos for research.
Reducing them to the level of corn or wheat.
And I find it ludicrously disgusting that (IF the gov’t is going to regulate us, which I wish it wouldn’t)…Killer Cigarettes are just too fantastic a source of “revenue” and tobacco lobbies just too powerful for these known carcinogens to be banned.
In the interests of brevity, end rant for the nonce.
Thank you for taking the time to write your thoughts.
December 6th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
. But attempting to engineer a culture’s ethics, whether by the left or the right, is a dangerous practice…
Yes.
In many respects, I link the dissolution of our culture to the growth of government in our lives.
To the extent that government intrusion has grown, “personal responsibility” has shot craps.
“the left” has become almost libertine in what behaviors it claims should be freely expressed in American culture. (e.g., making excuses for no holds barred rap lyrics) “the right” wants to invoke some rigid version of morality to keep us in check
Mandates and regulations (for either side) will never be able to substitute for common sense and wise individual choices.
This is what we’ve lost as a culture with the growing tendency to legislate everything that moves.
All I seek in a person who aspires to the Presidency is an individual who understands that government should not and cannot try to be all things to all people.
And a government that limits itself to functions specifically assigned to it in the Constitution, like “provide for the common defense”
This popularity contest 2 year long Presidential campaigning where the press attempts to draw out the innermost beings of each candidate (and the candidates cooperate) is way way over the top of anything we should be doing to elect a President.