Romney, Santorum, and God<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"by Steve EricksonThe American ProspectIn February 1849, Brigham Young, the man who unified the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, declared that\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/03\/romney-santorum-and-god.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Romney, Santorum, and God\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"by Steve EricksonThe American ProspectIn February 1849, Brigham Young, the man who unified the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, declared that\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/03\/romney-santorum-and-god.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rhetoric Race and Religion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-03-03T14:33:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Andre E. 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{"id":2310,"date":"2012-03-03T14:33:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-03T14:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/03\/romney-santorum-and-god.html"},"modified":"2012-03-03T14:33:00","modified_gmt":"2012-03-03T14:33:00","slug":"romney-santorum-and-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/03\/romney-santorum-and-god.html","title":{"rendered":"Romney, Santorum, and God"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

by Steve Erickson
The American Prospect<\/p>\n

In February 1849, Brigham Young, the man who unified the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, declared that the black man\u2019s color is the mark of Cain\u2014the manifestation of the first capital crime, Cain\u2019s murder of his brother. These days Mormon revisionism doesn\u2019t so much contest as ignore Young\u2019s decree, implying that it\u2019s urban legend. What the Church can\u2019t dispute is that until three decades ago, African Americans were prohibited from playing any role in the Church, and the extent to which they\u2019ve done so since is minimal. Governor Mitt Romney, a lifelong practicing Mormon, never has been keen to discuss this, and one of the ironies of the last few weeks is that he might not have to, if his candidacy continues to deteriorate courtesy of former senator and Catholic firebrand Rick Santorum.<\/p>\n

In this campaign so far, commentators have been waiting with some dread for Romney\u2019s Mormonism<\/a> to become an issue. Codified by the First Amendment, our politics hold that as the government neither sanctions nor judges people\u2019s faith, nor do we as individuals; and liberals in particular\u2014no fans of Romney\u2019s presidential aspirations\u2014argue that his Mormonism is off limits in assessing his candidacy. They have raised in whispers and warnings the prospect of religion entering the campaign in the same way that race does, or gender\u2014as another source of, or excuse for, prejudice at its ugliest. Reverend Franklin Graham\u2019s observations last week about who is sufficiently and incontestably Christian have only confirmed for many what happens when religion becomes part of the electoral conversation, and in recent American political history the election of John Kennedy, who famously addressed Protestant ministers in Houston during the fall campaign of 1960 on the matter of his Catholicism, is deemed a landmark moment when religious bigotry finally was faced head-on and overcome.
Read the rest here<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"