Understanding Mormons: It's A Real Problem

Mitt Romney has been under a lot of pressure lately. Not that there's anything wrong with or even surprising about that. The lead up to the presidential debates is always intense. Candidates typically respond by delivering their vision with articulate and passionate bullshit, carefully wrapped and vacuum sealed to energize the base without alienating the center. We're used to it.

But there are other types of pressure that have popped up on the campaign trail for Romney this September. For example, there's the pressure of being born wealthy, white and male, which apparently makes politics hard. It sounds awful as a joke, and plays even worse when the makeup artist accidentally goes too dark on the foundation when you're speaking to a Hispanic audience. Bad timing, that. There's also the whiplash realization that 47% of the nation aren't all Obama zombies chanting "hoooope, chaaaange", and many of them actively resent being characterized as such. Rumors flying around that your running mate has taken to calling you "The Stench" don't help either, especially when coupled with the enormous pressure of party insiders shifting their support to candidates lower down on the ballot because your numbers look bad on paper. I'm sure the irony isn't lost on a venture capitalist.

And then there's plain old cabin pressure, which you'd think would be a familiar and comforting thing to someone who flies as often as Mitt does. But he has problems with that, too. High school physics must have been hell. I feel for the guy.

Underlying all of this, though, is the giant elephant in the middle of the room that has only lightly been touched on so far; Romney's tax exemptions include huge donations to a church that includes secret handshakes and sacred undergarments. Join now, become the God/Goddess of your own planet in the afterlife. Certain restrictions apply, must be married and in good standing with the church to see the face of God. What Mitt refers to as "service" in France during the Vietnam war, the rest of us call "sales".

I'm joking, of course, at the expense of good people who happen to be Mormons; I try not to do that too often, because it's a gross oversimplification of what churches do, for better or for worse. Walter Kirn has an excellent article which handles both his troubles with blind faith and his utter disdain for people who make jokes about magic underwear, even though he's not a Mormon anymore. Along the same lines, the carefully focused criticism leveled by Brigham Young's great-great granddaughter, who left the church when she was 50, is more compelling on every level than the obvious cheap shots about Native American Jews. Stories like these lend texture and perspective to an ex-Morman friend of mine's outrage over the way that the church stepped in on Proposition 8 to pit black voters against gay and lesbian couples, and to her ultimate take on the position of women in the church:

"I saw it as what it was - exclusion through exaltation. Motherhood is so wonderful you should be happy god gave it to you instead of the silly priesthood.... The power structure of the church is a huge problem. And the women feel it but it is kinda an "emperors new clothes" thing. No one wants to be the first to say they don't wake up filled with the glory of gods plan!...  The women are the enforcers of it on the other women as the culture is spread and reinforced."

The real question is how Mitt Romney's faith informs his vision for America. Is it one where women like my friend and Brigham Young's great-great granddaughter feel valued for more than just their skills in raising children? Or is it a vision that puts women on a pedestal and then tells them to stay home and clean the toilets? Is he a pluralist who believes in the inherent dignity of humanity, regardless of race, opinions about religion, gender, sexual attraction, or socioeconomic status? Or does he have blind faith in a single path to salvation that excludes 99% of the world? These questions stop being about "freedom of [read: to legislate in favor of a specific] religion" and start becoming terribly important when a President starts making recommendations to the Supreme Court. If you're going to be Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, I'm interested in whether or not you expect churches to provide lifelong care for severely wounded soldiers instead of the VA. I want to know if you're going to tell a woman who has five kids that she needs to keep that eight-week-old fetus even though there's a risk to her life and only a 50% chance of survival for the child. I probably won't vote for you if I know your interpretation of your role as a bishop involves trying to bully a single mother who used to take care of your kids with threats of excommunication if she doesn't put her soon-to-be-born second child up for adoption. These are, obviously, not random examples.

[edit for clarity] All that being said, I'm not opposed to a Mormon President any more than I am to a Christian one, so long as the person following the religion doesn't try to force their religious values on me. There's something inherently (at the risk of sounding like a zombie) hoooope-ful about a presidential race between a Mormon and an African-American. I wanted to see the Huntsman-Obama debates, and I wish the primary voters had picked the better man. Maybe next time around.