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11 September 2012
Mormon Apostle Among Prominent Religious Leaders Discussing Faith and Politics at Notre Dame
September 11, 2012
On 4 September 2012, Elder Dallin H. Oaks, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon), participated in the 2012-13 Notre Dame Forum, “Conviction and Compromise: Being a Person of Faith in a Liberal Democracy.” The forum featured five prominent religious leaders addressing the role of faith in American democracy. Other panelists included Most Rev. Joseph E. Kurtz, archbishop of Louisville; Rabbi David Saperstein, director and counsel of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism; Rick Warren, founding pastor, Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, California; and Rev. Richard Cizik, president of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good. The discussion was moderated by David Campbell, a professor of political science, and M. Cathleen Kaveny, a professor of law and theology.
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Church Apostle Says Life’s Real Tests Come When Facing Challenges
September 11, 2012
Today’s challenges in life sometimes cause people to forget their Christian upbringing, explained Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon).
Speaking to a worldwide audience of Latter-day Saints ages 18 to 30, Elder Holland cited three incidents in his life of how people were affected by the unfair judgments of others.
In one of the incidents, Elder Holland spoke of a young Latter-day Saint man who was a good basketball player but was not getting the court time he wanted. He ended up transferring to another school where he became a starter. One of the games his team played happened to be against this ballplayer’s former team. The game had been scheduled years earlier for what was then the Delta Center in Salt Lake City. During the contest Elder Holland said this young man and his family endured an evening of “vitriolic abuse” from the home team fans. “What was said and done and showered upon him should not have been experienced by any human being, any where, any time.”
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Mormonism shows American values
September 10, 2012
Palladium Item (Indiana)
While Americans face the possibility that their next president might be a Mormon, most admit to knowing almost nothing about the religion. A Brookings Institution study reported in May that 82 percent of respondents knew little or nothing about Mormonism. This means that for the vast majority of voters, the 2012 presidential race will provide a rowdy introduction to Mormon thought.
There has already been snickering about the oddities of Mormon history. These include the half-century experience with polygamy, the 150 years blacks were deemed spiritually inferior and the years of misinformation about holy underwear. Yet the public airing of these peculiarities seems to have made little difference.
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Southern bigotry against the rich, Mormons could hurt Romney
September 11, 2012
Los Angeles Times (California)
Conventional wisdom would have it that some middle- and lower-income whites in the South might be prejudiced against voting for a black man for president. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll confirms that is true.
But in a perverse kind of good fortune for the nation’s first African American president, the survey shows that this group of Southern whites has an even bigger block against voting for a candidate who is Mormon or who they consider “very wealthy.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-poll-southern-romney-mormon-rich-20120911,0,5206114.story
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Many questions dog Romney
September 11, 2012
Quad City Times (Iowa)
What has he promised Sheldon Adelson? Will he really take $100 million from Sheldon? What did he promise Israel at his $50,000 per plate breakfast in Jerusalem, no press allowed? Did Sheldon sit next to him? What’s the Mormon Church’s view on gambling? Why did Newt Gingrich describe Bain as “a bunch of rich people figuring out clever legal ways to loot a company?”
Is tax avoidance as American as apple pie? Should all Americans aspire to park their fortunes in foreign tax havens? Is everything legal, fair and just? Or ethical? Does Romney believe the Mormon Church’s teaching that one will become God when they die and rule over their own world?
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Profs probe ‘Mormon moment’
September 11, 2012
Associated Baptist Press
Evangelicals going to the polls this November aren’t voting on whether Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is a Christian, but if he would make a better president than Barack Obama, a panel of Baptist seminary professors said in a campus chapel forum Sept. 11.
The discussion at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., probed a question on the minds of many evangelical voters since Romney’s official nomination Aug. 28: Can a Christian vote for a Mormon while opposing Mormonism?
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Panel asks: Can Christians vote for a Mormon?
September 11, 2012
Baptist Press
Addressing an issue on the minds of many evangelical voters as a Mormon runs for president, a Baptist seminary panel said Tuesday that evangelicals must jettison — for the good of their faith — the idea that the White House occupant must be a “religious mascot” for Christianity.
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary hosted the panel discussion, less than two months before American voters will choose between President Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney, who is Mormon.
http://www.sbcbaptistpress.org/BPnews.asp?ID=38688
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Meet the Press-Double Standard
September 9, 2012
Current TV
And too, while president Obama was practically forced to to be publicly baptized and answer for every strange remark made by his hot headed pastor, Mr. Romney’s Mormon faith is apparently off limits, even though there are elements of it that do have policy implications. Romney was a grown man in the Mormon faith before the church changed its policy to ALLOW BLACK PEOPLE TO JOIN! My God. I know there are a countless good people in the Mormon faith and I’m sure they all have a personal story of how they dealt with this issue if they are Romney’s age. America does need to hear Romney’s story there too.
http://current.com/community/93896942_meet-the-press-double-standard.htm
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Evangelicals Hug the Sidelines as Catholics and Mormons Seize the National Stage
September 11, 2012
New York Observer
One would think that a candidate from a religion that has preached, say, that all Indians are the wicked and degenerate descendants of ancient Hebrew tribes would be reluctant to spark a culture war. But Mitt Romney went there the other day, pledging that if elected, he, for one, “will not take ‘God’ out of the name of our platform,” or “off our coins,” or “out of my heart.”
He somehow failed to elucidate that, according to Mormon doctrine, ‘God’ is a former man who lives somewhere near the planet Kolob. But never mind. I’m a big-tent Christian myself. About half of my relatives are Catholics, and some of the others are fundamentalist Protestants. I love them all dearly, including the one who told me that the Republican convention in Tampa was likely to be attacked by anarchists with “acid-filled eggs.” (Don’t bother to contemplate the logistics of that too closely. Let’s just say it reflects a strong inclination toward a belief in the miraculous.)
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Fanning: Mormonism and the media scrutiny
September 11, 2012
Summit Daily (Colorado)
Recently, “World News with Diane Sawyer” aired a two-part report, “Inside the Mormon Church.” Kate Snow interviewed a gay person; a feminist, and an interracial couple on their experiences within the church, and NBC found a cast member from the Broadway show, “The Book of Mormon.”
CNN Anderson Cooper quizzed Pastor Robert Jeffreis, “Mitt Romney-Mormonism a Cult?” Wolf Blitzer did a feature on Mormonism and had a “loaded’ panel for discussion. MSNBC’s Rachael Maddow and Ed Schultz can’t get enough of the Mormon religion. One might think they are considering a conversion. Many liberal newspapers have had articles and analysis all over their pages. I am sure many of you have heard or seen stories on Mormonism.
http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20120911/LETTER/120919992/1078&ParentProfile=1055
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ACLU says ordinance infringes on church’s free speech, other rights
September 11, 2012
Salt Lake Tribune (Utah)
The ACLU of Utah alleges an “Orwellian” ordinance in Brigham City is depriving a nondenominational Christian church of its constitutional right to use any and all public sidewalks to pass out literature challenging Mormon beliefs during a month-long open house for a new LDS Church temple.
The ordinance “essentially turns the entire city into a place where free speech, free assembly and free exercise of religion are prohibited until people are granted a special permit designating free speech zones where they are allowed to engage in those activities,” states the civil complaint filed in U.S. District Court Tuesday on behalf of Main Street Church of Brigham City. “Main Street Church has the right under the First Amendment to leaflet on sidewalks, which are public forums,” while the city may impose only narrowly tailored time, manner and place restrictions.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/54875634-78/church-sidewalks-brigham-ordinance.html.csp
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ACLU sues Brigham City over its free speech zone ordinance
September 11, 2012
Standard Examiner (Utah)
The Utah Chapter of the ACLU sued Brigham City in federal court Tuesday calling its free speech zone ordinance unconstitutional.
The suit was filed on behalf of the Main Street Church, of Brigham, which has been handing out literature critical of the LDS Church from free speech zones, established via the ordinance, adjacent to the new Brigham City LDS Temple.
Temple tours in an open house for the public have been under way since Aug. 18. The Main Street Church was allowed to set up the zones along the full length of sidewalks in the temple block on its north and south sides.
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New Paperbacks: Navajo Code Talkers, A Massacre of Mormons, the Destruction of American Newspapers and Two New Novels
September 11, 2012
Tucson Citizen (Arizona)
The Mormons immigrated into Missouri at the urging of their prophet, Joseph Smith. The new settlers were immediately seen as outsiders and so began a major conflict.
During the autumn of 1838, Governor Lilburn Boggs issued an order that Mormons should be treated as enemies and either exterminated or driven from the state. Several days after the order was issued, a Missouri militia attacked a small Mormon settlement at Haun’s Mill, killing seventeen men and boys and wounding more than a dozen others.
As Will Bagley points out in his foreword, “More than most documentary histories, “Bones in the Well” serves up large chunks of history…raw (T)hese survivors’ stories are filled with harrowing imagery (and) teach us much and give us even more to ponder about fear, hatred, and religion.”
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Roger Ebert revives 5-year-old review of Mormon massacre film for 9/11
September 11, 2012
Twitchy
Remember “September Dawn,” that movie that came out in 2007 about a mid-19th century massacre of settlers by Mormon fanatics? No? Well, Roger Ebert does, and on 9/11, he wants you to remember it too. We’re not sure who was questioning the fairness of his zero-star review, exactly, but Ebert tweeted today that he stands by it and provides a handy link.
So why revive it at all? Ebert says the film can be taken as an allegory for 9/11 and argues that the Mormons in the film “are presented in no better light than Nazis and Japanese were in Hollywood’s World War II films. Wasn’t there a more thoughtful and insightful way to consider this historical event?” This is oddly sensitive language from a man who earlier this year asked his Twitter followers to clue him in to Mormons’ “magic underwear” and if it meant something “gay.”
http://twitchy.com/2012/09/11/roger-ebert-revives-5-year-old-review-of-mormon-massacre-film-for-911/
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Mitt Romney Wealth, Religion Prove Lasting Concerns For Southern Whites
September 11, 2012
Huffington Post
At Liberty’s May commencement, Romney, a Mormon, sought to stake out common ground with fundamentalist Christians. Without directly mentioning the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, as the Mormon church is formally known, he told the crowd of 34,000: “People of different faiths, like yours and mine … can meet in service, in shared moral convictions about our nation stemming from a common worldview.”
According to Reuters/Ipsos polling data, however, 35 percent of voters overall, and the same proportion of lower- and middle-income white Bible Belt voters, say they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who is Mormon.
Many evangelicals who would normally vote Republican say they view Mormonism as a cult.
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People have a right to ask about Mormonism
September 11, 2012
Rochester Post Bulletin (Minnesota)
Tom Ostrom’s Aug. 28 letter to the editor, about Brian Williams’ supposed bigotry in an NBC report on Mormonism, was rather ironic. Perhaps if Mr. Ostrom had gone online to check out what folks thought about this report, he would have found that a significant number of viewers considered it a “fluff” piece at best.
While Ostrom is quite right in stating that the Constitution bars a religious litmus test for candidates, it is my prerogative as a voter to use any personal litmus test I choose concerning elected officials.
The Mormon Church is an esoteric or a gnostic entity by its own choosing. It does not reveal its finances. It fudges on its true membership numbers. It keeps non-Mormons out of its temples where marriages take place. It performs baptisms by proxy for the dead — a practice that has irritated Israel to no end involving Holocaust victims.
http://www.postbulletin.com/news/stories/display.php?id=1507978
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Construction on Mormon chapel in Mission to begin this week
September 10, 2012
The Monitor (Texas)
It was a Saturday, but roughly 180 people were dressed in their Sunday best as they sang and prayed over the land on the corner of Bryan and 2 Mile roads that will hold their place of worship.
Leaders of the local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, more commonly known as the Mormon Church, said at the official groundbreaking ceremony Sept. 1 that they were grateful construction on the new 17,217-square-foot chapel would soon begin after years of waiting.
But some neighbors, who want to keep the community residential and preserve animal and plant species that live in the area, are still opposed to the large structure.
http://www.themonitor.com/news/mission-63748-mormon-week.html
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Democrats, Mainstream Media Turn to Religion in Election Homestretch
September 11, 2012
Christian Post
Mainstream media outlets, possibly spurred by Democratic rhetoric on social issues, have begun to focus on religion in the GOP, including Mormonism.
During the Republican primary, some of those challenging former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (or loosely associated with their campaigns) attacked his Mormon faith by drawing distinctions between it and Christianity, even making the case that a Mormon could not be elected to the nation’s highest office.
And as others have predicted, networks such as NBC are starting to air documentaries and specials that focus on Mormonism with a particular focus on racism and polygamy. Some conservatives maintain there remains a double standard in covering the faith of other national leaders.
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