American Mormon-Bashing 2007

In 1903, Republican Reed Smoot of Utah became the first member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Mormon, ever elected to the U.S. Senate. The public hostility to Smoot's religious faith and its earlier practice of polygamy (which the church had formally outlawed in 1890) was so intense that for four years, the Senate refused to seat him.

Smoot was finally able to assume his office after the personal intervention on his behalf by President Teddy Roosevelt and after one of his Senate colleagues, citing Smoot's one marriage to one woman, observed memorably, "I'd rather serve with a polygamist who doesn't polyg than a monogamist who doesn't monog."

More than a century later, America has obviously become a far more unprejudiced and fair-minded place. In 2006, the Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times Poll asked, "Just thinking about a candidates' religion, could you vote for a (Jewish/Catholic/Mormon) for president, or not?" Fourteen percent of registered voters admitted they could not vote for a Jewish nominee for the White House, and 9 percent revealed a similar objection to a Catholic. But a full 35 percent of registered voters said they "could not vote for a Mormon candidate."

Former Massachusetts Gov. Republican Mitt Romney, the first Mormon to emerge as a serious contender for president since the late Arizona Democrat Morris Udall in 1976, is facing some severely closed minds in 2007. Nor is the resistance only from evangelical Christians who disagree with Mormons over theology. Forty-five percent of self-identified "open-minded" liberals and 42 percent of "broad-minded" Democrats confess they cannot vote for any Mormon. Nearly half a century after the election of Catholic Democrat John F. Kennedy to lead the nation, many of his fellow party members are now applying a religious test for high office.

In the judgment of political scientist John Green, senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and American Politics, the expressed hostility toward Mormon candidates is "the exception to the positive trend over time to greater tolerance."

Strangely, as Green points out, the voters' antagonism seems to be directed solely against White House challenger Republican Romney, while there is "very little talk about (Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid," who is, like Romney, a faithful Mormon, but a Democrat.

To run for president, there's an unwritten law that you have to belong to a political party and a church.

Americans seemingly want their presidents to be church members, but not too religious. President Jimmy Carter's teaching Sunday school was a positive character reference, but voters grew somewhat uneasy when they learned that Carter interrupted his White House duties four or five times a day to pray.

Veteran New Hampshire Republican leader Tom Rath, now a senior advisor to the Romney campaign, agrees that the anti-Mormon prejudice toward Romney is both irrational and unembarrassed. Rath points out that in spite of his candidate's church's prohibitions against consumption of alcohol and gambling, Romney, as governor, independently signed laws to extend the state lottery and to legalize the Sunday purchase of bottled liquor. With just a hint of exasperation, Rath quips, "Understand, he's running for commander in chief, not theologian in chief."

There are real and legitimate reasons to oppose the presidential candidacy of Mitt Romney. Yes, he has changed his position on divisive social issues. He may be too conservative, or even too liberal, for your taste. But you owe it to your conscience, our Constitution and to your country to base your decision on what kind of a public leader private citizen Mitt Romney has been and where he seeks to lead this nation. Not on where Mitt Romney spends Sunday mornings. Americans are better than that.

To find out more about Mark Shields and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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COPYRIGHT 2007 MARK SHIELDS