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24 July 2012
Jef responds to charges that ‘The Bachelorette’ hid his Mormonism
July 24, 2012
Los Angeles Times (California)
On Tuesday morning, the pair jumped on a conference call with a handful of media outlets to talk about wedding plans and how in love they were. But I would not be part of this lobbing of softballs. When it came time for me to ask my first question, I asked about something that has been perplexing a number of us in “Bachelorette” Nation for months: Why wasn’t the show forthright about Jef’s Mormon background?
If you recall, when I saw Emily at the “Men Tell All” taping a few weeks ago, she told me that the topic simply didn’t make it to air because there was so much material for the producers to choose from. But on Tuesday, Jef had a different explanation as to why his religious upbringing wasn’t a part of the season’s story line: He purposefully didn’t talk about his faith on-camera.
“My family is very private, and what my parents are doing right now is private to the family,” he said, referring to his parents’ Mormon mission in South Carolina. “I didn’t want to create any media attention to what they were doing, so Emily and I discussed things off-camera.”
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Mormonism and American Exceptionalism
July 24, 2012
The New Republic
Chait questions whether Romney actually believes this himself or whether the rhetoric is just a bit of nationalist demagoguery. Figuring how which of Romney’s statements and positions reflect his authentic self has become something of a bipartisan sport. But I think it’s worth noting that an enthusiastic belief in American exceptionalism is part of Mormon culture and theology. There is the sacred significance of America as the setting for the Book of Mormon and the birth of the Latter-Day Saints. But there is also the belief by early LDS leaders that Mormons would one day rescue the country when it threatened to fall apart.
In an essay on this topic last month, Pat Bagley of the Salt Lake Tribune included this quote from Brigham Young: “There is not a Territory in the Union that is looked upon with so suspicious an eye as is Utah, and yet it is the only part of the nation that cares anything about the Constitution.”
http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/105330/mormonism-and-american-exceptionalism
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Nostradamus 2.0: Melchizedek Mormon Priest Predicted in 1800 [sic] That Mitt Romney Will Win in 2012
July 24, 2012
Policy Mic
Though Mormons have run for president before, beginning with the faith’s progenitor, Joseph Smith, none have come quite as close as Mitt Romney, who first ran for the White House in 2008, 40 years after his father, also an LDS member, made the attempt in 1968.
Smith prophesied in the early 1800s that “in the last days the Constitution will hang by a thread” and it has been added by the church’s faithful that “it will be the Melchizedek priesthood that will restore it.”
Smith, of course, is referring to the country’s top legal document, but the reference to the Melchizedek priesthood, for the uninitiated, pertains to an ecclesiastical level of authority, which derives its name from a prominent figure in the Bible, granted to certain male members of the church to perform such tasks as baptisms, weddings, and other sacred ceremonies.
Mitt Romney is a member of the Melchizedek priesthood.
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Mitt Romney: Who’s Your Daddy?
July 24, 2012
WBUR (Massachusetts)
Polls continue to indicate that about 20 percent of America remains reluctant to vote for a Mormon presidential candidate, like Mitt Romney. Nevertheless, Romney’s biggest problem isn’t religion – it’s his public persona.
Unlike his late father George, a naturally gregarious governor of Michigan and 1968 presidential candidate whose intemperate and explicit words condemning the Vietnam War cost him his party’s nomination, Mitt’s mode of political Russian Roulette is saying too little, too late and speaking in half-truths. Left untended, these often bloom as whole lies. Romney’s reluctance to pin himself down preemptively dates back to his first run for office in 1994, when he flatly refused to deal with the “Mormon Issue” before his opponent, Sen. Edward Kennedy, did. By then Kennedy was on his way to victory.
http://cognoscenti.wbur.org/2012/07/24/mitt-george-romney-rb-scott
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Romney on abortion: One issue, seven positions
July 23, 2012
MSNBC
The first, and perhaps most important shift according to Saletan, happened in 1994 when Romney met with representatives of the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City, arguing with his church’s leaders that a poll he’d had commissioned indicated he had to run as pro-choice in order to be elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts.
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US Religious Right Presses Anti-gay Laws In Africa
July 24, 2012
Huffington Post
Kaoma’s report identifies groups belonging to a loose network of right-wing charismatic Christians. They include Pat Robertson’s American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), the Catholic Church’s Human Life International (HLI) and the Mormon-led Family Watch International. All have launched or expanded offices in Africa over the past five years.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/24/us-religious-right-presse_0_n_1699610.html
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Silly Commentary on Mitt, Money, and Mormonism in the Washington Post
July 24, 2012
Patheos
The intent here is clear, to somehow impugn the integrity of a wealthy believer by cherry-picking verses and religious teachings that seem — taken alone — to condemn the wealth only for their wealth. Ms. Miller gets off to a good start, quoting the Book of Mormon’s declaration, “Wo unto the rich . . . Their hearts are on their treasures.” Such a verse may well put an evangelical on the defensive. After all, the evangelical church is so diverse and fractious that you can easily find a prominent Christian willing to condemn any accumulation of wealth beyond a given, arbitrary, cutoff. But this is the LDS church, and the LDS church is a bit more disciplined, putting out guidelines on prudent financial management and necessary giving.
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From an ice cream float to a volcano, Days of ’47 parade a hit
July 24, 2012
Salt Lake Tribune (Utah)
The parade commemorates the entry of Brigham Young and the first group of Mormon pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley. July 24 is recognized across the state as Pioneer Day, the day Young looked out across the valley and said, “This is the place.”
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/54543812-78/parade-float-east-family.html.csp
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Church, State & Everything In Between At LDS Symposium This Week
July 24, 2012
Salt Lake City Weekly (Utah)
With Mitt Romney bringing a political spotlight to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it’s no wonder the Mormon scholarship symposium put on this week by Sunstone is focused on “Mormons and Mormonism as Political Force.”
In an LDS Conference for the rest of us–Sunstone is hosting a weeklong symposium of independent LDS scholarship tackling topics from the “Mormon moment” to LDS feminists to the gospel approach to the health-care debate and a whole heckuva lot more. Pre-registration for the event has closed, but an opening night event Thursday is free and open to the public and day of tickets can be bought for individual sessions.
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Mitt Romney’s ‘lamentable’ north of England roots
July 24, 2012
The Guardian (United Kingdom)
American presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s Mormon religion is well known. What may be less familiar is the fact that he is descended from one of the first European converts to the new religion in the 1830s; and that this ancestor was an echt Northerner.
Romney’s great-great-grandfather Miles Romney was a carpenter who lived in Penwortham, across the Ribble from Preston. Miles had originally been from Dalton-in-Furness, and was related to Dalton’s most famous son, the painter George Romney.
In 1837 Preston and the Ribble Valley was the target for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints’ first proselytising mission to Britain, and Miles Romney is believed to have been among the first of their converts – they were baptised in the river Ribble. Only seven years earlier the Mormons’ founder Joseph Smith had published The Book of Mormon – a translation from the ‘reformed Egyptian’ language of the symbols written on a series of golden plates which Smith said an angel helped him to uncover near his home in upper New York State.
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Michael Kinsley: Romney campaign needs to have faith in candidate’s faith
July 24, 2012
Omaha World Herald (Nebraska)
Romney shouldn’t be pushing his Mormonism into a corner and hoping people will forget about it.
He should be making it a central part of his campaign. It’s far and away the best thing I know about him.
http://www.omaha.com/article/20120724/NEWS0802/707249966/1677
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Romney’s liaisons dangereuses
July 24, 2012
Deutsche Welle (Germany)
Unlike the last Republican president who was widely criticized for his lack of international experience, Mitt Romney spent two and half years abroad. So why don’t we hear him talk about that time during the campaign?
Going door to door in southern France in the late 1960s trying to strike up conversations about Mormonism must have been a mind-opening experience for an American college student with limited French language skills.
At the height of the Vietnam War, Mitt Romney and other young Mormon missionaries from across the US – sent overseas to proselytize – often didn’t even get a chance to talk about their faith to the mostly Catholic French.
http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,16113600,00.html
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All-State swimming notebook: Edmond Memorial’s Willy Utsch on a mission
July 24, 2012
The Oklahoman (Oklahoma)
Instead of heading to Oklahoma, where he’s been accepted as a National Merit Scholar, Edmond Memorial swimmer Willy Utsch will head to the Spokane, Wash., area.
As a Mormon, Utsch is heading to eastern Washington for a two-year mission.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” Utsch said after competing in the Oklahoma Coaches Association All-State Swim Meet on Monday night at Jenks High School. “It’s something I’ve wanted to do for years, and I’m excited.”
Utsch will attend either OU or Brigham Young University when he finishes with the mission. His plan right now is to major in engineering.
http://newsok.com/all-state-swimming-notebook/article/3694980
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US religious right presses anti-gay laws in Africa
July 24, 2012
Associated Press
Kaoma’s report identifies groups belonging to a loose network of right-wing charismatic Christians. They include Pat Robertson’s American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), the Catholic Church’s Human Life International (HLI) and the Mormon-led Family Watch International. All have launched or expanded offices in Africa over the past five years.
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Ann Romney heads to Wales to play up rags-to-riches roots
July 24, 2012
The Guardian (United Kingdom)
Ann Romney – nee Davies – was raised in Michigan and first met her husband-to-be in primary school. The couple began going out together when she was 16. A year later, she converted to his Mormon religion. The following year, her brothers followed suit.
Almost four years to the day of their first date, the couple married, flying to Utah the day after the civil ceremony for a wedding ceremony inside the Salt Lake Temple. Her parents, as non-Mormons, could not attend the celebration, although her mother converted just before her death in 1993.
Romney’s father never followed the rest of his family into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but the family nevertheless baptised him a year after his death in 1992.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/24/ann-romney-wales-rags-to-riches?newsfeed=true
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The hidden Mitt Romney
July 24, 2012
Politico
The presumptive GOP nominee is known for his abilities as a salesman. But Romney has made a calculation against selling three major elements of his background to voters. To some degree, the Republican’s campaign has walled off three critical aspects of what makes Mitt Mitt — his Mormon faith and good deeds, details of his experience running Bain Capital and his signature achievement as Massachusetts governor.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0712/78878.html
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