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| I can't help but wonder if Sarah Palin carried Newt's marriage record if she would have ever been considered for VP. |
I came across this bit of information on Religion Dispatches. Joanna Brooks writes that according to the head of South Carolina's Southern Baptist Convention, Christian conservatives will have an easier time fumbling (compromising themselves) their way through the fact Newt is a serial monogamist, than they will that Mitt is a Mormon.
.....But just as Romney’s numbers were picking up again and I was preparing to sound a note of caution about over-hyping anti-Mormonism, this little gem came across the wire: the new head of South Carolina’s Southern Baptist Convention (the largest religious group in the state) says that for many faith-motivated voters, Mitt Romney’s Mormonism would be a greater moral problem that Newt Gingrich’s serial adultery.
Rev. Brad Atkins told a local South Carolina newspaper franchise that conservatives could “process and pray” their way through Gingrich’s adultery but will “struggle to understand how anyone could be a Mormon and call themselves a Christian.”
This just days after Romney scored an endorsement from South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.
Conservative pastors are pitting the specter of popular anti-Mormon sentiment against the Republican establishment, and legitimizing that sentiment in the process. It’s quite a spectacle, and quite a mess the GOP has on its hands. Is this what happens when you outsource a political party’s grassroots operation to the religious right?
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I don't know why anyone would be surprised the religious right is trashing Mitt Romney for not being a Christian. All one has to do is look at what the religious right has done with President Obama. For many of Newt's followers President Obama is a Muslim who was never an American citizen. Quite a convoluted way of avoiding the whole issue of Obama is of mixed race.
I don't believe the issue has anything to do with who is actually Christian, but whether they belong to the tribe. In this sense Newt has always belonged to this particular tribe, and so of course the tribe will overlook his multiple marriages, but can't quite get over Mitt's non tribal Mormonism. Newt seems to hold the position of the brother who went off to college and that no one quite gets anymore. Never the less, he is still the brother. Mitt on the other hand, is foreign to the family and therefor all the values and ideals held by the family. Almost as bad as that Obama guy. Joanna is right, the Republican nomination process is becoming a spectacular mess and one that's getting queasier and queasier to watch.
But the other thing I found queasy in this article is how plastic the need for the 'one man one woman' definition of marriage seems to be for the religious right. I guess it really means one man with one woman at one time. The least they could do is add that to the definition of marriage. They would look far less hypocritical. As it stands now they just look provincial and tribal. Maybe in the final analysis that's the whole message of the current Republican party. It's certainly one of the strongest messages being sent by Roman Catholic leadership, no matter if it's dressed up as Catholic identity and religious freedom. It's still fearful provincial tribalism rejecting the truth the real world is bigger and more diverse than they can handle.
