If You’re An Evangelical Who Doesn’t Like Mormons, You Should Still Be Outraged At This

Buckle your seat belts, evangelical friends. Noah Glyn points out that the mainstream media is suddenly very interested in religion. Last night, here’s some interesting footage from MSNBC. Noah writes:

MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell attacked Mitt Romney, Mormonism, and Joseph Smith. According to O’Donnell, Smith only created Mormonism to justify his lax sexual mores.

Watch the clip. And apparently, O’Donnell’s done it before. This second clip, apparently filmed after Gov. Romney’s excellent “Faith in America” speech, is from The McLaughlin Group in 2007. Notice that when O’Donnell is asked if he’s a Christian, he doesn’t respond and instead scathingly refers to Mormonism a “racist” and a “pro-slavery” religion.

But before you Christians start feeling smug about Mormonism finally getting its due, take a moment to consider what you’re doing. As Charles wrote once after the Washington Post ridiculed Michele Bachmann:

“… the mainstream media and the left – whoops, I repeat myself – see no difference between what many evangelicals regard as the Bible’s truth and the teachings of Mormonism. If we support the idea that you can paint some ‘conservative’ faith communities as simply beyond the pale, they’ll do the same to us before we even get out the first five words of our explanation of submission or sin offerings. That’s what they’re trying to do right now to Rep. Bachmann, and when we attack Mormons as too kooky to be president, we aid and abet them–not because there really is no difference between our beliefs and theirs, but because the soundbite war in the midst of a presidential campaign isn’t the right place to have that conversation.”

As more evangelicals are coming around to support Gov. Romney as the “ABO” candidate but still have hesitation about his religion, it bears repeating.

You do not have to hold hands with Mormons, sing kumbayah, and adapt a “we’re all the same” mentality to support Gov. Romney for President. You just don’t. You can maintain that they are wrong theologically. (Guess what? They think you’re wrong too, or they’d be Baptist.) However, here’s the part you must not miss.

If you are an evangelical who doesn’t like Mormons, then it turns out you’ve got a lot in common with Democrats. David unpacked this before pretty well:

At Commentary, Jonathan Tobin breaks down a recent Gallup Poll showing that 22 percent of Americans won’t vote for a Mormon:

Still, in an era when religious pluralism is an unquestioned element of American culture, it is somewhat baffling that Mormons remain the object of hate. Some may put it down to the rigid beliefs of conservative evangelicals who think Mormons are not Christians, but considering the rude treatment the Mormons have gotten on both Broadway and HBO, it must be considered that some sophisticated liberals may be among the prejudiced 22 percent Gallup has discovered. Indeed, the survey says 27 percent of Democrats said they would not vote for a Mormon as opposed to only 18 percent of Republicans and 19 percent of Independents. All of which goes to show when it comes to religious bias, so-called liberals may turn out to be less tolerant than conservatives.

This is unquestionably true. Secular leftists are often quite religious in their zeal to attack traditional values, and I’d say that they have Mormons in their crosshairs in large part because they’re quite effective in defending our culture. After all, there’s only 6 million Mormons in America, yet the media Left — from HBO to PBS to Broadway — has spent much of the last two election cycles flailing away at the LDS church.

In other words, the secular Left hates Mormons because they see the LDS church as a part of the same Judeo-Christian tradition we belong to; the same Judeo-Christian tradition they so despise. Noah rightly suggests on NRO not holding your breath for MSNBC’s O’Donnell to condemn any Democrats who profess Mormonism (like Harry Reid).

So what does this mean? It means that Republican people of faith are all in this together. So let’s lock arms… not to sing kumbayah in some sort of ecumenical fireside sing-a-long.

Rather, we need to lock arms as we walk, step-by-step together to reclaim our party, our culture, and The White House.

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