My not so secret shared background with Mitt Romney

marjorie says...

Let me take a commercial break for the moment here in Albuquerque...

(from the fact that our pro-developer Mayor veto'ed the highly progressive act of the City Council to amend the TIDD legislation, and the fact that Albuquerque High barred SWOP youth from conducting their approved tabling to provide alternative military recruitment info at lunch time in light of the newspaper article today)

...to comment on Mitt's speech.

In his speech today (which I haven't heard--just read about) Mitt set out to allay fears that his Mormon faith is, or should be, or would be, a factor in his presidential run. A cursory glance at the headlines, and a few quick read throughs, show me that his speech is being compared to JFK's Catholic speech quite a bit. Well, I'm not a historian and I'm not sure what group JFK was trying to assuage. But I suspect that back then one particular religious sector did not hold the sway they have today in American politics.

That would of course be the Christian Born Again Evangelical grouping.

Maybe those not from that group or from the Mormon group don't quite get it. But as someone who grew up in the Mormon faith, in a very devout way, let me tell you...

Those evangelicals don't like Mormons. They call Mormonism a cult, and attack it at every turn. I grew up with that. It isn't something I or any Mormon outside Utah has to research. This is a dilemma for Mitt Romney given the power of that group in the Republican party. Those are the people he is speaking to, not any of the rest of us.


Addendum: I'm not a Mormon now, and could offer a lot of criticism of the church. But I guess I'm just not in the mood. I hate feeling attacked. And I really dislike it when my family is attacked. And that's the way the whole thing about Romney's religion seems to me...however subtle. See, I am not always rational after all. I thought this article did a pretty good job of describing some of the positive aspects of Mormon culture (Aside from monogamy and patriotism of course) (just kidding!)(ok, and the intolerant bit about homosexuality is true. (big) sigh.)