Feeling free to hate Mormons

James Fallows

TheAtlantic.com

“I am no big fan of Mitt Romney’s,” said James Fallows. But to oppose his presidential bid simply because of his religion is “just plain bigotry.” At last weekend’s Values Voters Summit, Texas evangelical preacher Robert Jeffress, who backs Rick Perry, reiterated his view that Mormons aren’t Christians and that voting for a Mormon like Romney “would give credibility to a cult.”

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Media coverage of “the Mormon angle” focused on whether widespread antipathy toward the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will affect Romney’s chances. But that’s not how Jeffress’s “bigot talk” would be covered if he said, “I’d never trust a Jew” or “a black could never do the job” or “women should stay in their place.” Such sentiments would inspire universal outrage. Yet it remains acceptable for people on both the Right and Left to be “open about their anti-Mormonism.”

For evangelicals, it’s the church’s theology that’s the problem; for liberals, it’s the LDS’s conservative political stances. Either way, disdaining all Mormons is “simple prejudice”—no better than hating all Catholics or Jews or blacks.