Anti-Mormonism

The following is a post by a commentor on the Salt Lake Tribune's website (coltakashi: 2/13/2008 1:54:00 PM) which I thought did an excellent job at confronting the anti-Mormon contention in America. Unedited, it appears below:

Anti-Mormonism is not simply disagreeing with Mormon doctrine or beliefs. By definition, anyone who is not a Mormon disagrees, as do even some Mormons. Anti-Mormonism is rather an active dedication to preventing the growth of the Mormon Church and the advancement of its programs. It involves publishing information critical of the Church and its members.

Obviously there is a spectrum of activity in that area. However, the program that is carried on by the Southern Baptist Convention North American Missions Board is motivated by their understanding to 40% of Mormon converts in the US come from at least nominally Baptist members. That would be on the order of some 40,000 people each year. The SBC for several decades has been engaged in telling its members that Mormons are not Christian, and that Mormons are ignorant of the Bible and Christian doctrine or in some cases actively deceptive to both the members of the Mormon Church and to Christians. Thus, a statement by a Mormon, such as was made by Mitt Romney, that he believes Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Davior of Mankind is held by the SBC to be false and deceptive. The SBC thus labels Romney as a liar, and Mormons generally are classified as either ignroant dupes or intelligent liars. During 2007, the SBC was actively putting out anti-Mormon messages to its churches every month, climaxing in a direct attack on Romney because the election of a Mormon to the presidentcy would give the Mormon "cult" a legitimacy in society that it did not deserve. Clearly, Baptists would for the same reason oppose the election of any Mormon to any public office, and it manifested itself in the campaign of Representative Istook of Oklahoma for governor of that state. Even in Idaho, where Mormons are the plurality religion in the eastern part of the state, Larry Echohawk's campaign for governor was derailed to a great extent because of his identification as a Mormon who held a fund-raising event in one of the rented reception rooms at the former Hotel Utah.

Huckabee did not need to publish anti-Mormon propaganda himself, because Evange;lical churches were already carrying his water for him. Just as they gave him forums to speak, and used church resourcves and membership lists to call for donations and votes, they also distributed anti-Mormon propaganda to ensure that Romney would not be accepted as credible and would be rejected as not really Christian.

A survey done by political scientists at a non-Mormon university in the East found that many of the people who criticized Romney as a "flip-flopper" really were using that term simply to express their religious enmity and distrust toward him. They had been indoctrinated for years that Mormons are liars, especially on religious matters.

Now imagine if those churches were teaching the same thing about Jews and Catholics. A due and cry of criticism would arise in the national new media that would not cease until the church involved stopped the action and apologized profusely. But the national news media do not care when Mormons are getting beat up.

Mormons do not publish pamphlets and books and videos attacking Baptists. They do not picket Baptist churches, yelling at people who have just been married. Mormons do not insist that Baptists be relegated to second class citizenship, where they cannot be elected to any office because it would give their religion prestige. Mormons believe specifically that a Baptist who lives a good life will spend eternity in the presence of Christ (in what Mormons call the Terrestrial Kingdom). As noted, a good many Mormons WERE Baptists. Former Mormons who are now Baptists are much fewer in number, but can trade on that fact for notoriety. Mormons do not claim that Baptists are inveterate liars or unthinking dullards.

The resentment that is professionally taught by the SBC to its members is no different than the anti-Semitism that the Nazis promoted in Germany. It treats peope of a specific religion as if they are a unique ethnic strain, who deserve to be discriminated against, and kept out of leading roles in society. If anti-Semitism is bad, if anti-Catholicism is unacceptable, then why is anti-Mormonism given a pass by the larger American society?

To a certain extent, it is because many non-religious people in America also hate Mormons. A Survey done by a Jewish organization of religious prejudice in academia found that college professors disliked and distrusted Evangelicals the most, with Mormons coming in second, even though Mormons were overrepresented in academic positions nationally. The screeds written in Slate and other left wing journals have attacked Mormonism for the intensity of its belief in the reality of God and Christ. So a Democratic Mormon would have just as much trouble with the left wing of his party as Romney had with the right wing of his.

What this points to is the need for the creation of a party of the Center, that will exclude the extreme antagonisms of both the Left and the Right. Such a center is a majority of Americans. It would take wrenching change to create a Center party, but once established, the extremes in the current two parties would be minorities that could not win power nationally.