<p>Our current political discourse (cable talk shows) is full of this sort of debating trick where one tells others what they really said – It’s not fair to do this.</p>
<p>Zoosermom has told us what she thinks. People can critique it and argue it’s contradictory, but don’t misrepresent it. No one would like it if it happened to them.</p>
<p>“Zoosermom has told us what she thinks. People can critique it and argue it’s contradictory, but don’t misrepresent it. No one would like it if it happened to them.”</p>
<p>THank you. I appreciate that very, very much.</p>
<p>I wonder what you think of the Clinton/Obama thing. I read on a blog this morning that it’s hurting her support among blacks. what are your thoughts on that.</p>
<p>I’ve been very reluctant to offer a post on the religion issue, but I fear that Romney is blurring a distinction; has he declared his religious beliefs as a sword or as a shield? Moreover, Mini’s point is quite valid in my mind; that is, when can I expect a statement from Romney explaining his church’s very recent teachings/beliefs etc. that promoted racial discrimination? If Romney’s complaint about Obama “experimenting” with controlled substances as a teenager is legitimate, then an evaluation of Mormon racial attitudes in the 1980s (when Romney was an adult) is fair game and an appropriate area of inquiry for a presidential candidacy.</p>
<p>“If Romney’s complaint about Obama “experimenting” with controlled substances as a teenager is legitimate, then an evaluation of Mormon racial attitudes in the 1980s (when Romney was an adult) is fair game and an appropriate area of inquiry for a presidential candidacy.”</p>
<p>I agree completely and would like to hear his views on that before I decide on a candidate. It would be a very worthwhile line of inquiry, particularly if the questions are asked in a manner that is respectful and open to hearing (not necessarily agreeing, of course) what his answer is.</p>
<p>The party of the rich, Republican Party, is now trying class warfare. Quite fascinating/</p>
<p>[Rivals</a> try class warfare against Romney - Yahoo! News](<a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071214/ap_on_el_pr/republicans_class_warfare;_ylt=Aosk20XyrMFCTa6lVMx2g8JB5494]Rivals”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071214/ap_on_el_pr/republicans_class_warfare;_ylt=Aosk20XyrMFCTa6lVMx2g8JB5494)</p>
<p>Clinton is distancing herself from the horrible statements about Obama. However latest poll shows her losing in NH, where the attack surfaced. Has the Clinton machine been destroyed by Obama?</p>
<p>[Clinton</a> rejects official’s Obama comment - Yahoo! News](<a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071214/ap_po/clinton_obama_drugs;_ylt=AjNm7rIr1u8hWxVmNAJLKFdh24cA]Clinton”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071214/ap_po/clinton_obama_drugs;_ylt=AjNm7rIr1u8hWxVmNAJLKFdh24cA)</p>
<p>I know quite a few Catholics who don’t necessarily agree with the Vatican on many issues- of course they weren’t bishops running for public office. </p>
<p>If Romney is a true beleiver- he may not question that it took decades (after blacks won the vote)for the LDS church to have a revelation in 1978 that instructed them to stop discriminating against blacks.</p>
<p>However, the view that a womans place is in the home and to take direction from her husband is an integral part of the current religion & to change that belief would change the religion.
[The</a> Role of Women in Mormonism](<a href=“http://www.exmormon.org/mormwomn.htm]The”>The Role of Women in Mormonism)
[Mormons</a> and women’s rights at the UN - Divine Discrimination Humanist - Find Articles](<a href=“http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1374/is_1_63/ai_96417151]Mormons”>http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1374/is_1_63/ai_96417151)</p>
<p>this I am much more concerned about</p>
<p>More on Romney’s doctrinal racism problem:</p>
<p>[Lawrence</a> O’Donnell: Romney & Me - Politics on The Huffington Post](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>Romney & Me | HuffPost Latest News)</p>
<p>Did he believe it, and teach it to his children, and to his stake until he was 30? Did he flipflop because his church told him to?</p>
<p>Lawrence O’Donnell was beyond pale in his rant on tv.</p>
<p>I watched the TV rant - and while I did not like his style, I found not a single substantive point with which I could disagree. He had done his homework, and was factually correct on every single issue raised. That’s what makes this so troubling. Romney could have addressed the issues directly - he chose not to, which I find duplicitous. And if he was teaching racist doctrine to his children, doctrine akin to that of David Duke, I would want to know in no uncertain terms whether he has flipflopped, and if so why? Was it on the orders of his church? Or because he rejected the doctrine? </p>
<p>These would be fair questions for ANY Presidential candidate.</p>
<p>From March 2007: “Prominent Democratic attorney Bill Shaheen today will be named a co-chair of Hillary Clinton’s national and state Presidential campaign.”</p>
<p>December 2007: </p>
<p>Bill Shaheen is now just a campaign aide that got fired (“resigned”) because he was the one responsible for negative drug comments about Obama that coincidentally surfaced when the polls showed her slipping in NH.</p>
<p>Poor Bill. Sold down the river by Hillary. Nothing will stop her now. :o</p>
<p>Mini I agree 100%. I do, however, think that O’Donnell’s style was inappropriate. In a respectful format, those questions could be asked and answered. Like I said, I would like to know. Do you think that Romney’s observance (or at least professed observance) of his religion gives him a pass that a lapsed Catholic wouldn’t get in terms of questions about his/her faith?</p>
<p>I think O’Donnell is correct that doctrinal questions among Latter Day Saints are quite a bit different than they are within the Catholic Church. More to the point, Romney was a stake president, among his duties being to ensure the doctrinal purity of the congregaton. </p>
<p>Romney had the opportunity to address it - instead of addressing the substantive issues around his beliefs and their potential impact on policy matters, he chose to provide an affirmation of traditional Christian dogma without any reference to his beliefs whatsoever. From where I sit, until he goes further, the question is asked and answered: he was brought up as a racist, and as a thinking adult taught racism to his children, enforced racist beliefs within his congregation, and then might, or might not, have flipflopped.</p>
<p>He not only oversaw his own congregation but his stake consisted of about 12 parishes.</p>
<p>But while Guliani ( who I also wouldnt vote for) can still consider himself a Catholic and support choice, I don’t see any indication Romney would leave that up to the individual.</p>
<p>I know Mormons to be very nice people- but strict followers of the faith as Romney would have to be, to have risen up through the church hierarchy, don’t consider “Gentiles” as worthy as members of the church.</p>
<p>[I don’t know why any blacks would choose to be Mormon](<a href=“Priesthood - Mormonism, The Mormon Church, Beliefs, & Religion - MormonWiki”>Priesthood - Mormonism, The Mormon Church, Beliefs, & Religion - MormonWiki)
Then again I don’t understand blacks who are Republicians either ;)</p>
<p>Wading in…I am a Catholic, but have been told frequently by Evangelical Protestants–my term, definitely not theirs–that I am not Christian because Catholics “do not believe in the Trinity.” Why? “Because you think Mary is divine.” IMO, this is hogwash and Catholics are most definitely Christians. (We do believe in the Trinity and do not think Mary was divine, though we certainly give her a more exalted stature than most Protestants.) Thus, I view myself as sensitive to the issue of other people defining whether I am a “Christian” using criteria that I do not accept. </p>
<p>That said, I don’t consider LDS members to be Christians. I don’t think it’s necessary to decide whether it’s a cult or a religion to reach that conclusion. My conclusion is not based on ignorance but having had a LDS friend in college who taught me quite a bit about her faith. What she believed in–including but not limited to the Book of Mormon–just has nothing to do with Christianity at all. It’s just a different faith. </p>
<p>So, personally, I find it more than a bit disingenuous for Romney to try to make “conservative” Evangelical Protestants think he shares their beliefs. He doesn’t. These folks wouldn’t vote for a Jew or a Muslim and --while personally I think that’s idiotic–I just think it’s basically lying for LDS members to try to pass themselves off as “Christians.” It seems to me that that’s what Romney is trying to do. I would respect him a lot more if he just said my faith shouldn’t be relevant to the Presidential race and left it at that. </p>
<p>Drawing an analogy, if Joe Lieberman had tried to say that Judaism was just some exotic strain of Christianity to folks who really didn’t know better, the press would be all over him. But Romney seems to be getting away with trying to make it seem that tha’t what LDS is. (Judaism and Christianity have more commonality of beliefs than LDS and Christianity, in my view.) </p>
<p>Again, please don’t assume I am anti-LDS. I’m not. I just don’t thnk LDS is Christianity. </p>
<p>Am I missing something?</p>
<p>No, jonri, you aren’t missing anything. You are absolutely right.</p>
<p>Except, Jonri, for the following:</p>
<p>you assert that
</p>
<p>See, I think you would “classify” me as a conservative evangelical (I would disagree with that, however) Christian and your statement above is not only not true, but insulting. I, like most of the other “conservative Christians” I know would make my decision based upon who could best lead this country, not upon their “faith” or, more accurately, their “religion”.</p>
<p>I am a Quaker, and there are evangelicals that consider me devil’s spawn. </p>
<p>I really don’t care about his “faith” or his “religion” or whether he is a “Christian”. I do very much care whether he is a racist, taught racism, ensured that racist doctrine was communicated, and then flipflopped because of his church rather than his conscience. If the latter, I strongly question whether he is qualified to lead the country, and it doesn’t have to do with his religion, but his character.</p>
<p>CMM–</p>
<p>I am sorry I offended you. Based on your previous posts, I do not consider you a “conservative” Evangelical Protestant. Please note that I put the word “conservative” in quotations. I did that because I am not using it to mean conservative in the political sense. </p>
<p>By my definition–which I should have included–I am using it to include those folks for whom the answer to the question which Romney purported to answer, “Do you believe in Jesus Christ and accept him as your personal savior?” is a litmus test which must be based before they will vote for him. </p>
<p>I think that Romney’s answer was carefully crafted to mislead folks like that.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Good point, mini. And certainly a valid reason to decide about your vote. However, and I am not trying to defend anyone’s stance on anything (racist or otherwise), but I can also see the value of someone being able to evaluate a position they have held on a subject and realize they were wrong and so change their stance. What some call “flip-flopping” could also be called reassessment of the situation and making appropriate adjustments, I suppose.</p>
<p>Jonri, no offense personally taken. I just get weary of people seeming to equate Christianity with ignorance. To be honest, though, I probably get weary of it because, too often, people who purport to be followers of Christ are just parading around being judgmental. And I tend to think they are pretty ridiculous myself, so I guess I should not be surprised that others do the same and reduce them to mere characatures (I am pretty sure I misspelled that!) of what a Christ-follower should be.</p>
<p>Sorry, I did not mean to sound quite so defensive.</p>
<p>What some call “flip-flopping” could also be called reassessment of the situation and making appropriate adjustments, I suppose.</p>
<p>I agree.
I did this in my parenting- I learned that some issues were more complex than I first thought and while I might have intially had one reaction- with additional information- I occasionally changed my stance.</p>
<p>I always explained the reason I changed my mind though- I think that is a most important bit- because without that background, the beneficiary of my mind change might have thought it was the holding of the breath that did it, and not my realizing that they only had 4 hours of sleep in the last two days.</p>