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Sunday, December 16, 2007

Mitt has a hole when it comes to race

Mitt Romney on "Meet the Press" today turned emotional as he recalled the day in 1978 he learned over his car radio that his Mormon church had finally dropped its full membership barriers to blacks. He may have even shed a tear on camera, or as Drudge has it in a headline at the top of his site: MITT TEARS ON MTP. He had cried that day in 1978, too, allegedly so happy the black ban had finally collapsed. You'd hardly know that, fact is, Romney had done absolutely nothing about fighting this racist barrier before his epiphany in his car.

The Mormon Church considered blacks spiritually unfit as results of a biblical curse on the descendants of Noah’s son Ham. Some prominent Mormons — including Morris and Stewart Udall -- had publicly called for an end to the doctrine, the same kind of pressure that had earlier led to the end of approved polygamy. Mitt Romney, a former missionary -- and in an influential position as son of former Gov. George Romney -- said absolutely nothing.

“I hoped that the time would come when the leaders of the church would receive the inspiration to change the policy,” Romney told The New York Times a few months ago. “The way things are achieved in my church, as I believe in other great faiths, is through inspiration from God and not through protests and letters to the editor.”

Now today he says, “I was anxious to see a change in my church...it’s very deep and fundamental in my life and my most core beliefs that all people are children of God. My faith has always told me that." But, actually, his faith -- as a Mormon -- told him the opposite. Tim Russert gave him a chance to say that his church was wrong, but Romney would only reply, “I told you exactly where I stand. My view is that there’s no discrimination in the eyes of God." Yet, queried repeatedly today by Russert, he heartily embraced the support for his candidacy by Rev. Bob Jones.

3 comments:

rikyrah said...

As an African-American, I have absolutely no intentions ever of voting for a man whose religion, IN MY LIFETIME, said that I couldn't enter into heaven, as anything other than A SLAVE.

If that makes me a religious bigot, then so be it.

And standing up at Bob Jones - nail in coffin for me.

Anonymous said...

This is a complete misconception. The LDS Church does not teach that blacks can only get to heaven as slaves.

Some leaders made racist statements in the past, but are not to be categorically accepted as church doctrine. (Remember tho, the Southern Baptists taught just a few decades ago that blacks go a to a separate heaven than whites...)

Unknown said...

once again, you get an article that seems to leave out that critical element..True information, not taken out of context.

There have been black members of our church long before the change in 1978, we believe that any and all races can go to heaven, and that has always been the policy. The change was specific to priesthood. Read about it from the source. www.lds.org and do some research.