MITT ROMNEY ON RELIGION AND RIGHTS

From: Brett D.

Sent: May 23, 2012

To: undisclosed recipients

Subject: Fw: MITT ROMNEY ON RELIGION AND RIGHTS

I'm curious to what your readers think of this article and interview. Is Mitt just being a politician or is he sincere? This election will come down I believe to which candidate will come across as holding dear the American beliefs and core values.
Thanks, Brett
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Mitt Romney hasn’t been all that comfortable, on the campaign trail, talking about what he refers to as “the faith of my fathers”—Mormonism—and his attachment to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And when it comes to personal professions, there is no reason why he should.

(In fairness, he is not all that comfortable talking about, say, money, or the weather, for that matter.) But, as I write over at Daily Comment, where I can be found on Wednesdays, being a Mormon and running for President introduces certain complications (for Romney) and opportunities (for the rest of us), in terms of a wider discourse on religion, history, tolerance, and intolerance in America. (Two items of recommended reading: Lawrence Wright’s “Lives of the Saints,” and his post on Mormons and the Presidency.)

There is a vague assumption that talking about Mormonism, or talking, in President Obama’s case, about Reverend Jeremiah Wright, is like lighting a fuse. But is there, in either case, really anything that would explode? (See Alex Koppelman for more on Wright.) Religion is often one of the more complicated parts of already complicated lives. It is explicitly mysterious. The danger is demanding religious tests—or that a person even have a religion to test—not in the winding way your neighbor thinks about God and death and love.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2012/05/romney-religion-and-rights.html#ixzz1vkM3KuSw