Trump's Mormon Problem

The last time that a Democrat presidential candidate carried Utah was in 1964.  Now,however, it appears that Hillary Clinton could repeat that feat, not so much because of Mormon's embracing her as for their rejection of Donald Trump.  Unlike hypocrisy filled evangelical Christians flocking to Trump, many Mormons are repelled by Trump's many marriages, his vulgarity and hate mongering towards woman, Hispanics and Muslims.  A piece in Religion Dispatches looks at trump's alienation of much of the Mormon population.  Here are some highlights:

In the last couple of presidential elections, Mormons have given the GOP around 80 percent of their support. Utah, where Mormons make up about 60 percent of the population, has not backed a Democrat for president since Lyndon Johnson’s landslide victory in 1964. With that history, a 2009 Gallup poll named Utah the “most Republican state.” In other western states like Nevada, Idaho and Wyoming, LDS citizens provide a reliable base for the Republican Party there.

Yet despite Mormon loyalty to the GOP, they have largely refused to lend their support to Trump.

Back in March, I wrote about Trump’s trouncing in the Utah caucus. Coming in third place with a paltry 14 percent of the vote, Trump faced a devastating loss to Ted Cruz who captured nearly 70 percent of Utah Republicans. Buzzfeed’s McKay Coppins explained Mormons’ rejection of Trump at the time owed to objections over his unsavory personal life and temperament but also to opposition to his proposals to ban Muslims from entering the country and his harsh anti-immigration rhetoric. Jana Reiss, a popular Mormon blogger, added that many Mormons recoiled from Trump’s demeaning treatment of women and his flippant statements about religious faith.

[P]olling this summer has revealed Trump continues to face bleak prospects in Utah, a state he must win to gain the White House. A June, Salt Lake Tribune poll showed Trump and Clinton tied at 35 percent each, while an early August poll has Clinton with a slight lead.

While Trump’s numbers are dropping almost everywhere—a recent poll indicated Clinton has grabbed a four percent lead in Georgia, for example—the Utah numbers invite further investigation.

In Slate, historian Max Perry Mueller provided critical insight last week contextualizing Trump’s poor standing among Mormons within the LDS Church’s long history as victims of religious persecution and its more recent emergence as a global faith. Having once faced extermination orders, Mormons, Mueller argues, take umbrage with Trump’s proposed ban to bar Muslims from entering the United States, something they rightly see as an affront to religious liberty.

As members of a global church that has found increasing strength in Central and South America, Mormons have also recoiled at Trump’s harsh statements about Mexicans. 

[I]n light of the support white evangelicals have given Trump, Mormons’ rejection of The Donald seems especially meaningful. Leaders of the #NeverTrump movement have worked hard since last summer to convince evangelicals they cannot support Trump, yet Trump continued to gainevangelical support throughout 2016. While the #NeverTrump crowd has remained voluble, they have also stayed markedly silent regarding Mormons’ opposition to Trump, a response indicative of longer historical patterns.

Amidst the social and cultural changes of the 1960s and 1970s, evangelicals often admiringly looked at Mormon families as a conservative bulwark against the nation’s sexual permissiveness and rising divorce rates. Yet, also fretful that Mormonism might grab evangelical converts,evangelical publications instead presented Mormon families as a front to cover up the faith’s polygamous past. Mormon virtue threatened evangelical teachings about its vice.

That virtue shines in Mormons’ refusal to back Donald Trump. Although they have long called themselves a “peculiar people” because of their separateness from the world and its ways, Mormons might consider adopting a new nickname after November. If they do reject Trump this fall, Mormons would be right to call themselves a “principled people” instead.

Will the "Mormon Problem" Sink Romney and the GOP

The power that has been ceded to Christianists and reality denying evangelical Christians in the GOP is stunning. Things have gotten to the point where unless one denies evolution, pretends the earth is 6,000 years old, actively and openly hates LGBT citizens, and engages in the religious psychobabble of the evangelicals - who as was noted in a recent post have the lowest IQ and educational levels of all Christians - one cannot get traction as a candidate for office. Mitt Romney is a case in point. There are many reasons that one might find for not supporting Romney, but obsessing over his religious affiliation should not be one of them. Yet with the Kool-Aid drinking crowd, the fact that Romney is a Mormon trumps all else. Including the fact that he's likely the most electable of the occupants of the GOP presidential clown car. A piece in The Daily Beast looks at this phenomenon. Here are highlights:

The Mormon issue has reared its unattractive head in Iowa. Newt Gingrich’s Iowa political director, Craig Bergman, told a McClatchy Newspapers focus group last Wednesday, before he was hired by the campaign, that “a lot of the evangelicals believe God would give us four more years of Obama just for the opportunity to expose the cult of Mormon. There’s a thousand pastors ready to do that.” For this, Newt pink-slipped him Tuesday.

Only in politics do you get fired for telling the truth. Note that Bergman did not say he believed this about Mormonism; he was merely stating a fact. Many evangelicals have serious issues with Romney’s Mormon faith, and you can expect them to voice them if Romney becomes the Republican nominee.

Judd Saul, a Tea Party activist and Iowa voter at the focus group, was even more blunt: evangelicals, he said, “won’t vote for a Mormon.” Polk County GOP co-chairman Dave Funk told the group that Romney would not have any coattails if he were the nominee because he wouldn’t “turn out 3 million evangelicals to vote in every school board and local election.”


Polls support this contention. Alan Cooperman, a research director at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, pointed out to me that in the latest Pew Research poll, there are “really high negatives for Romney among white evangelicals.” The Dec. 13 poll found that among white evangelical Protestants who say they are very likely to vote in a GOP primary, 18 percent say there is no chance they would vote for Newt Gingrich. For Romney, the figure is 35 percent.

David Lane of Iowa’s Pastors and Pews, which mobilizes the evangelical vote, told me bluntly, “Eighty percent of evangelicals will not vote for Romney in a contested primary, and 20 to 30 percent will stay home or go third party in the general election because of the Mormon issue and because they see him as an advocate of abortion and gay marriage.”

[S]ocial conservative and evangelical leaders in Iowa maintain that the primary issue with Romney is his flip-flopping and lack of a core belief system. But considering that Newt is an Olympic level flip-flopper—but still garnering significant evangelical support—this doesn't quite add up.

Romney told the Des Moines Register last week that religion or spirituality should not play a role in the election process. Perhaps it shouldn’t, but all too obviously it will.

Years ago the GOP establishment helped create the Christian Right Frankenstein monster within the Party and their cynical willingness to compromise principle (and reject knowledge and intelligence) for short term advantage continues to haunt them.

Anti-Gay U. S. Olympic Official Quits

While those behind his appointment are claiming ignorance of his anti-gay views, Peter Vidmar who had been appointed as chief of the U. S. Olympic mission for 2012, has resigned. Johnny Weir (at right) among others caused a brief firestorm that led to Vidmar's resignation which I believe was totally appropriate. With a growing number of nations granting full marriage rights to same sex couples and a growing number of out athletes, a homophobe has no place on the Olympic commission which should represent all citizen athletes. The tide of history is turning slowly but steadily against anti-gay bigotry and the Olympic commission needs to embrace the future rather than have its face represented by bigotry. I am beyond over those who seek to inflict their personal religious beliefs on all of society. If they want to do so, then I suggest they move to Afghanistan Uganda or some similar place. Here are highlights from the New York Times:
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Peter Vidmar, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in gymnastics, stepped down Friday as the chief of mission for the 2012 United States Olympic team after a controversy about his public opposition to same-sex marriage.
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He said he resigned because he did not want his personal views to overshadow the athletes. “The sooner we can get back to helping focus on London and our athletes, the better,” Vidmar said in an e-mail.
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Vidmar, a Mormon, was a supporter of Proposition 8, a California ballot measure that defined marriage as being between a man and a woman. He said he was against same-sex marriage for religious reasons, and that his views would not affect his interactions with the United States Olympic team.
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Still, the controversy about his views grew after his appointment. Last Thursday, the openly gay figure skater Johnny Weir called Vidmar’s appointment “disgraceful” in an article on the Web site of The Chicago Tribune.

Jon Huntsman Tests a 2012 Presidential Run

Many years ago at this point when I was once an active member of the GOP - in the days before the wholesale take over of the party by the Christianists and the debacle of the Chimperator's misrule - party leaders used to say the purpose of the party was to offer up responsible candidates and to win elections. Obviously, the concept of responsible candidates has gone out the window as the GOP has become increasingly extreme, if not outright insane. Now, to appeal the the Tea Party and Christianist base, one needs to prove himself or herself both a religious extremist and only too willing to return to the robber baron era and throw average Americans on the trash heap and allow the majority of the elderly to be faced with inadequate medical care and even poverty in their sunset years. The current field of GOP candidates underscores this sad reality. Enter Jon Huntsman, former Utah governor and ambassador to China. While in office as governor, Huntsman sought consideration on social issues. As ambassador to China, Huntsman has foreign policy bona fides that the rest of the deranged GOP field - e.g., Christofascist Mike Huckabee - lacks. But could he conceivably win the GOP nomination given his Mormon faith and disinclination to use gays and abortion to incite the haters of the GOP base. The Washington Post looks at Huntsman's possible candidacy. Here are highlights:
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Jon Huntsman Jr. was leaving for dinner here early Friday evening when he was greeted on the front porch of his hotel by another guest. “I’m looking forward to supporting you,” the guest said, “but I haven’t heard you yet.”
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The remark summed up the anticipation — and the absence of information — that surrounds the former governor of Utah. For the past two years, he was the U.S. ambassador to China, appointed by President Obama. By June, he is likely to be running for the Republican presidential nomination with the goal of unseating the man who sent him to Beijing.
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With the Republican field still taking shape and dissatisfaction with the choices evident among party activists, the little-known Huntsman and the team of advisers he has assembled think there is opportunity for a fresh face to shake up the GOP race.
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Huntsman’s first public outing post-China was a nonpolitical event. On Saturday morning, he was the featured speaker at commencement exercises for the University of South Carolina’s College of Arts and Sciences. . . . Huntsman spoke about the harsh repression of dissidents in the country he just left, rather than taking note of China’s economic prowess. In fact, he dismissed the idea that China was “the next big thing.” America, he said, still holds the world’s attention. . . . He will tell skeptical Republicans he went to China out of a sense of patriotic duty, not a personal allegiance to the president.
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Huntsman might be little known, but he comes to the starting gate with some obvious assets. He is handsome. He is enormously wealthy, thanks to the chemicals business his father built. His resume ranks with those of better-known candidates. He can point to extensive public service not only as governor and ambassador to China but also in the administrations of George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. He rides a motorcycle and played in a rock band as a youth.
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Whether he can fit himself into the new Republican Party is the big question. . . . he was compiling a record that will command scrutiny and, no doubt, questions from his rivals. . . . . That record includes past support for aggressive action to combat climate change with a cap-and-trade regime that is now anathema to many Republicans. . . . On social and cultural issues, he opposes same-sex marriage but has voiced support for civil unions. . . . Offsetting that, he opposes abortion and is a strong supporter of the Second Amendment.
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Huntsman’s goal will be to convince Republicans that he is the most electable among the field of candidates. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has not taken sides, calls Huntsman “a guy to watch.” But can a former member of the Obama administration demonstrate he’s best prepared to defeat him?

Retired Bishop: Sex With Boys Doesn't Count as Sex

Having been raised Roman Catholic, I am all too aware of the Catholic Church's bizarre hang ups on all matters sexual and the manner in which - despite outward worship of the Virgin Mary - women are viewed by the all male hierarchy as evil temptresses just waiting to drag males to perdition. It's a mind set that is beyond f*cked up. It took me years of therapy to get over the psychological abuse I received at the hands of the Church. And sadly, in many areas the Church is continuing to inflict severe psycho-sexual damage on children and youth even as predatory priests feel free to sexually abuse boys. Why do they have this sick mindset that the rape of boys and teens is okay? Because, according to a now retired Australian Bishop, to many priests sex with boys doesn't count as sexual sin because it's not with women - you know, those agents of the Devil. Daily India has coverage on this beyond sick situation. Here are highlights:
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A retired Catholic bishop in Australia has claimed that some priests do not view the molestation of boys as a breach of their celibacy vows.
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Geoffrey Robinson, the former auxiliary bishop of Sydney, blames the absence of women from church life as a catalyst for the sexual abuse crisis enveloping the faith. According to the Australian Women's Weekly, Robinson said boys suffered more than girls at the hands of paedophile priests partly because they were more available to them, with nuns tending to play a greater role in the religious education of young girls.
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There was also a view among some offenders with whom he had worked that a priest's celibacy vows weren't broken if a boy was involved. "We've met it often enough to see it as a factor. That's what the vow of celibacy refers to, being married. If it's not an adult woman, then somehow they're not breaking their vow," Adelaide Now quoted him as telling the magazine.
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Three years ago, Robinson broke 50 years of silence about his own abuse at the hands of a stranger, who he said wasn't a family member or a priest. It goes some way to explain his work with abuse victims and his commitment to change within the church.
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He says getting women more involved in church life is a crucial step forward. "If the feminine had been given greater importance and a much larger voice, the church would not have seen anything like the same level of abuse and would most certainly have responded far better," he said.
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He believes the issue will not be properly dealt with until the church holds a council, or a conference of all the bishops in the church, to revise the centuries-old doctrine on celibacy, women and sexuality.
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I've now come to believe that raising children as conservative Catholics is indeed a form of child abuse. Many of us did not realize it in the past, but with all that has come out - and continues to come out - about the damage the Church's sick obsession works on one's psyche, it's time to call such an upbringing for what it is. The same likely applies to raising children as strict Mormons or Southern Baptists where being human and a sexual being is seemingly considered among the worse sins.

Mormon Beefcake Calendar - Men on a Mission

I happened to see a brief comment about this fund raising catalogue last night on MSNBC and thought I'd see if I could find out more about it online. Sure enough, I found the web site (http://www.mormonsexposed.com/). I am sure Mitt Romney is happy that the LDS is doing something to losen up the view of Morons as staid and not fun loving. These boys are rather cute too, so I will post separate missionaries in future posts. This information is from the web site:

The 2008 Men on a Mission calendar features twelve handsome returned Mormon missionaries from across the United States who, for the first time ever, have dared to pose bare-chested in a steamy national calendar.

While the fact that twelve young returned missionaries are posing shirtless will certainly raise eyebrows, it may also help to sort out some common misconceptions of Mormons by celebrating the beautiful bodies, great looks and amazing stories of service of these deeply spiritual men. Intended to be a light-hearted spin on a social taboo, the Men on a Mission calendar is a tongue-in-cheek celebration of the selfless servitude of missionaries.

Each of the twelve missionaries will have the opportunity to donate a portion of the proceeds from the sale of the calendar to a cause in the area he served. Some of the charities supported will include the Red Cross, Salvation Army and Habitat for Humanity.