December 9, 2007
The Facts
Mitt Romney is getting a lot of response to his speech on “Faith in America”. Naturally, almost all of it is about his own faith, Mormonism, which was not the intent of his speech. Romney made that very clear in days running up to his speech. However, the people and the media insist making the speech about Mormonism.
My View
The fact is I really didn’t expect much of a different public reaction that we got; and I am not one bit surprised that this is what the media is focusing on. Religion is, and always will be, a controversial subject, just like politics. However, I didn’t think the controversy would be so mean spirited. On one news report there was a film clip that showed Romney walking up to an elderly man seated at a table in a coffee shop or something trying to speak to the man and shake his hand. The elderly man refused to shake his hand and commented in a very mean tone of voice that he wasn’t going to vote for a Mormon (“holier than thou”).
I am not a believer at all in organized religion, and this is one of the many example’s of why. Too many of them use their belief against other people. Other than the exceptions I made in another posting, I believe it is absolutely wrong and un-American to use religion against a presidential candidate. As I also indicated in yet another post, most people are going to vote for a person based on one or two of their personal needs or desires; not for the overall good of the country. And in a lot of cases they will vote or not vote for a person based solely on a single reason, like this elderly man. How sad.
Now, having defended Mitt Romney’s religion let me point out that Mormonism was born of one man, Joseph Smith. He said that he saw & spoke to God and Jesus in the flesh who gave him a “golden text”; and their religion is based on this claim. Otherwise, the Mormon Bible isn’t much different than the Bible of traditional Christianity. It is because of these sorts of claims made by Joseph Smith that there are so many different & varying religions. If people of traditional Christianity are going to use that fact against Romney, then they need only to look inward to find very similar differences. If not, why are there so many varying churches & beliefs within traditional Christianity; Baptist (Free Will, Southern, etc.), Methodist, Presbyterians, Assembly of God, Church of God, and on & on & on. They differ because someone from the past interpreted some parts of the Bible different and/or put more importance on certain parts of the Bible than on others.
What’s the old saying; “he who is without sin should cast the first stone”?
Filed under: Presidential Campaign, Republicans
