¶ Mormons in politics (not Mittens related)
I love the breezy tone of the letter the Church is sending out to newspapers’ editorial boards, “Too often, the Church itself is left out of that conversation altogether. We’d like to join it.”
Check out, if you haven’t already, this Boston Globe interview with M. Russell Ballard and Quintin L. Cook. The most interesting part, I think, is the final statement by Elder Ballard, in which he makes it clear first of all that the Church isn’t endorsing any candidate — even the prominent Mormon — nor any even any party’s platform. They even leave a place for Mormon dissent regarding issues where the Church has taken a stance. For the life of me, it appears that the leaders of the LDS church fully support and desire a complete separation between church and state.
A couple of days ago, I wrote — and then refused to post — a long rant about the recent Fox poll (the one which showed a full 27% of voters said they wouldn’t vote for a Mormon this election, because of his religion) and about the rise of that creepy Huckabee character. I’m not going to rewrite it here, either, except to say that any reasonably intelligent voter who is concerned about the role of religion should read this is interview and satisfy themselves that not all people of religion are trying to establish a totalitarian theocracy. At least the Mormons aren’t. So calm down, already.
24 December 2007
# Comment by Justine on Dec 27, 05:58 PM:
While watching c-span the other day, I heard someone actually allege a large conspiracy by all Mormons everywhere to take over the world by infiltrating all world governments and bamboozle their way to leadership.
And while I realize that by beginning my remarks with, “While watching c-span…” might open me up to myriad other snarky comments, consider that someone on earth actually thinks I’m part of a vast conspiracy. Cool…