Church Head Of Public Affairs Responds To "Dangerous Religion" Claim

[Nemesis]

I don't even know how to respond, really.

"reformatting one" = manipulating

Anyone can see your quote manipulation no matter how much you copy and paste new and irrelevant information. So basically, you have admitted that you are the anti-Mormon who does his own quote manipulation. I am impressed! Most anti-Mormons use the same regurgitation - never have their own original thoughts.

But wait! That is even a lie. My link and My link (won't let me link this one since it is from the "Mormon Discussions board" titled "What lies did the Nauvoo Expositor print?") are the websites that your copied most of your regurgitated quotes from. You know, the same ones that you "researched" and claimed are no where on the inter-webs? Nice try!

Anyway, I apologize to the OP for the debacle of a derail. I guess in a way - it relates; the desperation of anti-Mormons even if it is on public display - they clearly have no shame in what they say/type/print.

Putting you in the limited group was supposed to change behavior not allow it to continue. Let's see if a suspension works.

Nemesis

[Glenn101]

In the Constitutional section Oaks uses cases that occurred many years after 1844, and the final case which Oaks uses negates his argument. I think Oaks makes a mistake in use case that occur 20, 30, 50 or 60 years after 1844 to support what happened in 1844. Because one government did something and no one challenged it, does not provide sound basis for other governments doing the same. The most instructive cases used by Oaks, are the cases, 1846 reversed order for abatement, the nuisance was the manner in which the rooms were kept, not the structure and 1873 which essentially reaffirms the 1846 reasoning.

This issue has been tried in the court of public opinion for ages. However, the response to the destruction of that press was not easily foreseen. It was a civil action, taken in accordance with the laws of the day, in that the Expositor was declared a nuisance by the city council and the nuisance abated.

The legality of the action was something that should have been challenged in the courts civilly and civil redress importuned. By the time this event occurred, the disaster was already in the hearts and minds of a lot of people inimical to the church. One can hardly view the events as they unfolded as a rational response to the destruction of that press. After all, that was not an unheard of practice during the time.

Glenn

[Kenngo1969]

Sometimes they even destroyed the newspapers that were publishing the negative opinions

You're imposing a 21st-century understanding of the First Amendment on something Joseph Smith did in the 19th century. According to the understanding of the First Amendment of the time, there was nothing wrong with what Joseph Smith did. Thanks fer playin'! (

[Kenngo1969]

Warren Smith gave a follow up interview on Patheos further clarifying his stance on why a Mormon should not be elected president.

Here's the interview.

Kenngo1969's Response, Part One

... [A]mong the comments that have been least helpful have been those coming from the LDS church itself.

I assume, by “comments ... coming from the LDS Church itself,” Mr. Smith is referring to the open letter from Public Affairs Director Michael Otterson. It’s a pity that neither Mr. Smith nor the interviewer followed up this comment with specifics. Such specifics would be most helpful in advancing the conversation.

My words have been taken out of context and my positions mischaracterized. If I really said some of the things that they accuse me of saying, I wouldn't believe me either.

If this accusation, too, is directed (at least in part) at Brother Otterson, I wonder, specifically, how Brother Otterson took Mr. Smith’s words out of context and mischaracterized them. Again, it’s a pity that neither the interviewer nor Mr. Smith provided such specifics.

[Responding to the accusation that his belief that a candidate’s Mormonism disqualifies him or her to be president is bigoted] ... [T]he word "bigot" is an ideologically charged word. It's an ad hominem attack, not a true argument.

Correction: it may be a charged ad hominem, depending on how and in what context it is used. The dictionary at Dictionary.com defines the word “bigot” as, “[A] person who is intolerant of any ideas other than his or her own, esp. on religion, politics, or race” (emphasis mine).

It would seem that Mr. Smith’s stance that one’s Mormonism disqualifies him or her as a candidate for president would fit that bill, particularly if, as I suspect, he wouldn’t be so quick to express (and indeed, hopefully would not hold) such a view with respect to other invidious criteria, opining that such criteria would disqualify those having them from holding the office of president. For example, It would be terribly outmoded (and that’s the most charitable thing I could say about it) for Mr. Smith’s commentary to have had a headline such as, “A vote for Herman Cain is a vote for the African American race,” or “A vote for Michele Bachmann is a vote for the female gender.” However, antipathy toward Mormons simply for their “Mormonness,” apparently is one of the last remaining acceptable prejudices.

Just to be plain, my view of Mormonism is this: It is not orthodox, biblical Christianity as understood by the three great streams of Christianity (Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant) and as expressed in the historic creeds of the church.

Huh. I thought Mr. Smith’s views were representative of a relatively small subset of Christianity. Are the leaders of the other faiths for which he presumes to speak aware that he has been (self?-)appointed to speak for them? I wonder how they feel about that, and I wonder why they aren’t capable of speaking for themselves. Personally, I doubt many Catholics or Orthodox would have much of a problem voting for a Mormon simply because s/he’s a Mormon. I wonder, are there are any on this Board who’d like to set me straight about that?

[Kenngo1969]

Kenngo1969’s Response, Part Two (Interview Linked in Previous Post)

To be slightly more specific: Mormon doctrine ascribes attributes to God and to Jesus that orthodox, biblical Christianity has historically held to be false. And orthodox, biblical Christianity proclaims as essential certain attributes of God and Jesus that Mormon doctrine denies. I know of no serious theologian or historian of religion—of any theological stripe—who would disagree with this position.

If you can only vote for someone with whom you are in perfect agreement religiously, Mr. Smith, you might be out of luck: Mike Huckabee isn’t in the running, and even if he were, would even he meet the exacting standard you apparently have set up? It seems as though many people who make the sort of argument you make, Mr. Smith, try to make the big tent of “us” (from which you exclude “them”—in this case, Mormons) as large as possible, in the process papering over differences which were once large enough to start entirely new faiths over. Perhaps the tent into which you’ve invited your group of “we” and “us” isn’t nearly as big as you’d like to think it is, Mr. Smith.

They often tell me, "We worship the same Jesus you do." It is to these assertions that I am saying, "Well, no, that's just not true."

You remind me of the guy who, on this very Board (or at least, on one of its predecessors; it may have been that long ago) once told me, “My Jesus is from above. Your Jesus is from below.” My response? “You mean, your Jesus is from Canada, and my Jesus is from Mexico? Well, I suppose that’s possible: there are a lot of ‘em down there, except they pronounce it, ‘Hay-SOOS’.” To borrow the illustration promulgated by another of this Board’s denizens, Dan Peterson, you may think Senator Smith is the best thing since sliced bread, while I might think he is a conniving charlatan, but that hardly means we believe in different Senator Smiths.

I said previously and would reiterate here that the election of a Mormon president would be a tremendous step toward normalizing Mormon beliefs.

How? I know of no Mormon candidate who has announced an intention to use the presidential “bully pulpit” as a proselyting platform, and I could probably find more than a few Mormons who think that would be an exceptionally bad idea.

[in response to the idea that a president’s religious beliefs, like those of, for example, an airline pilot, are irrelevant to how well s/he does the job] Actually, we do ask airplane pilots what their religion is, at least indirectly. ... They [pilots] understand and believe in the physical laws of the universe. The behavior of an airplane pilot is not random. His behavior in the cockpit directly connects to his beliefs about the world.

And this is what’s known as the logical fallacy of equivocation: one may—in fact, one often does—draw on different paradigms to explain one’s views about religion on the one hand, and one’s views of the natural world on the other. (This is evidenced by the fact that, while they may be a dying breed, there still are scientists who are religious believers). While pilots’ understanding of “the physical laws of the universe” may be relevant to how well they do their job, their religious understanding is irrelevant to it. When was the last time you requested that a flight attendant query the pilot as to his or her religion, Mr. Smith, and, upon learning that the pilot was Jewish or Buddhist or Muslim ... or Mormon ... requested that you be allowed to disembark?

[Kenngo1969]

Kenngo1969’s Response, Part Three (Interview Linked in First Post Above)

The president projects an image of America to the world. We have a right to expect that the man or woman who fills that chair projects a vision consistent with the beliefs, values, and ideals we've long held as a country.

And what “beliefs, values, and ideals” are those, Mr. Smith? That “all men are created equal”? That they are “endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights”? That “government of the people, government by the people, and government for the people” should continue to be enthroned as a guiding principle of our representative democracy? That people should have a right to freedom of speech, press, assembly ... and oh, yes, religion? That there should be no religious test for office? (Or do those “freedoms” only apply to people who believe as you do, Mr. Smith?) That people should have a right to petition their government for redress of grievances?

Would it surprise you to learn, Mr. Smith, that Thomas Jefferson and many of his fellows weren’t evangelical Christians? Would it surprise you to learn that many of them, in fact, were Deists?

First of all, the term "religious test" generally has a specific meaning. Article VI, Section 3 of the Constitution says, "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." Religion cannot be used by the state as a qualifier or a disqualifier for office. What this means, and what I affirm, is that Mitt Romney or anyone else has the right to run. The accusation that I was calling for a "religious test" was a textbook "straw man" fallacy.

Straw man? I think not. Whether the state imposes a religious test de jure or whether its citizens impose such a test de facto is irrelevant: the result is the same—someone is being barred from office on the basis of an invidious criterion. And your vision seems keenly attuned to some fallacies, like alleged straw men, while being completely blind to others which you yourself employ, such as special pleading and equivocation.

let me clarify what I said about being "unfit to serve." That sentence in context is this: "I believe a candidate who either by intent or effect promotes a false and dangerous religion is unfit to serve." I struggle to understand how anyone could disagree with that statement.

Do you think the sitting Mormons in the House and the Senate are unfit for their “promot[ion] of a false and dangerous religion”? Do you think Mike Leavitt, former HHS Secretary and EPA administrator, used his service in those capacities to “promote[ ] a false and dangerous religion”? Do you think that the circa 500 men of the Mormon Battalion (who answered their country’s call to serve despite the fact that many of them and their fellows had been driven from New York to Pennsylvania, from Pennsylvania to Ohio, from Ohio to Missouri, from Missouri to Illinois [by a proclamation of the state’s governor, no less] and finally, from Illinois to Utah) were “unfit to serve for their promot[ion] of a false and dangerous religion”?

I know that even some evangelical Christians disagree with me on this point. They say that a Romney presidency would not promote Mormonism. I respectfully disagree ...

Why? How would election of a Mormon as president of the United States “promote Mormonism”?

... and I think the stakes are too high—people's souls—to play around in the gray areas and hope we got it right.

Unless you can convince me that a Mormon, if elected to the White House, would use it as a platform for proselyting (and, as I said, I believe any number of Mormons think that would be a bad idea), I fail to see how such an event would, ipso facto, endanger people’s immortal souls.

I certainly believe that every voter has the right to take a candidate's views, religious and otherwise, into account in his or her vote. So doing does not make me a "bigot" or mean that I'm imposing a "religious test." It simply means that I believe a person's religious views tell us a great deal about what a person's governing philosophy will be.

By that logic, I would expect that Mitt Romney’s governing philosophy would be similar to Senator Harry Reid’s. Call me stupid, but I doubt that’s the case.

For a Republican to win the White House, evangelicals must not just vote for the Republican candidate, they must turn out enthusiastically as volunteers and contributors. When evangelicals are lukewarm, the Democrats win. Period.

Yet you, seemingly, would encourage such lukewarmness if the Republican candidate who emerged from the primaries happened to be Mormon. Let’s take a hypothetical: suppose there were a candidate whose views very closely matched those you espouse—on social issues, on fiscal issues, on governing philosophy, and so on—but who happened to be a Mormon. You opine that despite your vast areas of agreement with him, his “Mormonness” alone would be a disqualifier for office. I certainly hope that your like-minded fellows are few and far between; I certainly hope that there are more than a few “Evangelicals for Mitt” this time around. If not, President Barack Obama’s reelection may be all but assured.

The calculation is that just as America accepted John Kennedy's Catholicism, or for that matter Barack Obama's blackness, so too is America ready to accept Mitt Romney's Mormonism. But they forget that Kennedy had to give his famous speech to the Houston Baptists about religion, and that Obama had to give his famous speech in Philadelphia about race. Romney's strategy so far has been to talk about "values" and hope that will be enough for evangelicals. It won't. ...

Romney's problem will be that if he really believes what the Mormon Church believes, he dares not make that speech. The American people will say, "Really? Are you kidding me?" Or, if he makes "The Speech" and says he doesn't believe what the Mormon Church teaches, fellow Mormons will feel betrayed and even those who have trouble with the Mormon Church will nonetheless wonder about a man who can't stand up for his own. The bottom line: I don't see how he can square this circle.

He already has made the speech. You just weren’t listening. (Hopefully, more evangelicals were listening.)

[frankenstein]

While the Constitution prohibits a religious for qualification for office, that is a Government imposing a religious, there is nothing unconstitutional for a individual voter to apply a religious test.

[Jeff K.]

If you apply a religious test to someone who wishes to be a school teacher, that individual can be sued. If you apply a religious test to someone working for the DMV, likewise. If you apply a religious to test to most jobs, you will be sued.

[Stargazer]

If you apply a religious test to someone who wishes to be a school teacher, that individual can be sued. If you apply a religious test to someone working for the DMV, likewise. If you apply a religious to test to most jobs, you will be sued.

Yes, but that isn't what he said. He said that there's nothing unconstitutional or illegal for a voter to apply a religious test for public office. For example, I can refuse to vote for a Jew for President, and I can even publicize it that I did not vote for a particular candidate because that candidate was a Jew, and I don't vote for Jews. And nobody could arrest me and charge me with a crime, could they? Of course not.

But that puts the whole thing into perspective doesn't it? "I hates Mormunz, Catholicks, and Jews, and I would never vote for one for Pres-ee-dent." Followed by the sound of tabbacy juice being spit into a spitoon.

For the record, I don't care what religion a candidate espouses, or what race they are. I look at the entirety of their message and what I can understand from their past performance and associations to judge whether or not I should vote for them.

[Jeff K.]

One cannot read the mind of a voter. Intent is rarely used in the law to prosecute. There are exceptions though.

[Stargazer]

One cannot read the mind of a voter. Intent is rarely used in the law to prosecute. There are exceptions though.

I don't know, Jeff, but you seem to be saying that you believe a voter could be prosecuted because of an intent based on what in other circumstances could be illegal discrimination (such as hiring and firing decisions). There is no law whatsoever that says a voter may be prosecuted for voting against someone because of racial or other kind of prejudice. There is no "hate" crime law that covers voting. I am hoping that you understand this and that I am merely misreading you.

[frankenstein]

I dont quite understand this either, it is not illegal for a person to not vote for someone because of either persons religion. It is illegal for Governments to put in place religious test to even be a candidate. If we are going to prevent individuals from voting against someone because of religion, then we should be able to prevent votes which are grounded in religious beliefs.

[Kenngo1969]

While the Constitution prohibits a religious for qualification for office, that is a Government imposing a religious, there is nothing unconstitutional for a individual voter to apply a religious test.

Right you are. People are free to decide for whom to vote on the basis of any number of invidious criteria, with no constitutional restriction whatsoever. They're even free to trumphet their views in any forum where they can gain an audience, again, with no constitutional restriction. As I point out in response to Mr. Smith, however, no one should expect to be able to say (without quickly and decidedly being marginalized) and meaning it pejoratively, "A vote for Herman Cain [or for Barack Obama] is a vote for the black race," or "A vote for Michele Bachmann [if she runs] is a vote for the female gender."

It would seem that one of the last "acceptable" prejudices is refusing to vote for someone on the basis of his or her religion.

[Log]

But that puts the whole thing into perspective doesn't it? "I hates Mormunz, Catholicks, and Jews, and I would never vote for one for Pres-ee-dent." Followed by the sound of tabbacy juice being spit into a spitoon.

Not exactly, which weakens your argument. "Jew" is not a religious denominator, but an ethnic one, and has been for quite some time. It's not rednecks applying religious tests that is the concern, but rather those who view all religions as myths and their adherents as, perforce, hysterical, delusional liars. When framed that way, the issue is anything but "prejudicial" on its face, and it's at that level that any response must take place.

[Jeff K.]

Jeff K., on 12 June 2011 - 10:34 AM, said:

One cannot read the mind of a voter. Intent is rarely used in the law to prosecute. There are exceptions though.

I don't know, Jeff, but you seem to be saying that you believe a voter could be prosecuted because of an intent based on what in other circumstances could be illegal discrimination (such as hiring and firing decisions). There is no law whatsoever that says a voter may be prosecuted for voting against someone because of racial or other kind of prejudice. There is no "hate" crime law that covers voting. I am hoping that you understand this and that I am merely misreading you.

I am not in favor of it. However the government has put itself at times, in the position of divining thought and then prosecuting based on thought not just action. Consider how hate crimes are determined. If the government could, it would extend it to "illegal" activity elsewhere. The law would be applicable to civil rights laws. Much of what the government does is about control.

[Stargazer]

Not exactly, which weakens your argument. "Jew" is not a religious denominator, but an ethnic one, and has been for quite some time. It's not rednecks applying religious tests that is the concern, but rather those who view all religions as myths and their adherents as, perforce, hysterical, delusional liars. When framed that way, the issue is anything but "prejudicial" on its face, and it's at that level that any response must take place.

That's a matter of opinion. I respect yours, but I respectfully disagree with it.

The thing is, the term "Jew" is one thing to some people and another thing to some others. Not everyone regards Jewishness as racial in essence -- to some, Jewishness is a matter of religiosity, just as much as being Christian -- although I will grant it is a little more racial than religious. But it is not so cut and dried as you think.

[Log]

In the context of the discourse and its participants, the meaning of the word "Jew" is clear. When one hears the common refrain "The Jews run Hollywood!" one certainly doesn't think of religious people.

[Jeff K.]

Well, I do, but that is because I know so many Jews in Southern California and the issues they face. You would be surprised at the number of Judaic converts here. It is both ethnic and religious. Which makes the issue complicated.

[Avatar4321]

One cannot read the mind of a voter. Intent is rarely used in the law to prosecute. There are exceptions though.

Actually, intent is an element of many crimes.

[Calm]

Actually, intent is an element of many crimes.

As in premeditation....

[Kenngo1969]

Patheos.com’s Timothy Dalrymple has posted a critique of Warren Cole Smith’s opposition to Mitt Romney on the basis that Romney belongs to “a dangerous religion.”

Here is Mr. Smith’s piece:

A Vote for Romney is a Vote for the LDS Church

And here is part one of Mr. Dalrymple’s response:

Is It Bigotry to Oppose a Candidate on Religious Grounds? Part 1

Mr. Dalrymple asks:

Would you vote for a Scientologist? A Satanist? Or a Christian, Muslim or Jew of a particularly apocalyptic variety, whose religious beliefs told him that he should arrange a nuclear war in the Holy Land? Most people will reach some boundary where they will say, “Okay, I am willing to accept religious beliefs of many kinds, but beyond this point I cannot go.” So most people are not opposed on principle to taking a candidate’s religious beliefs into account.

No, I wouldn’t vote for a religious candidate like the one you provide in this example, but at least you provided a valid policy reason for me to not vote for him/her, and at bottom, that reason has nothing to do with the religion per se: rather, it has to do with how that religion would influence a policy choice (that, as president, the candidate would arrange a nuclear war). By contrast, Mr. Smith fails to demonstrate how Mr. Romney’s Mormon membership would influence his policy choices in a way Mr. Smith finds objectionable.

There’s certainly nothing unconstitutional about this. The founders forbade a “religious test,” but this means that persons of all faiths, or no faith at all, have a right to run for the presidency, not that the American electorate cannot take the faith of a candidate into account in the voting booth. A person’s faith tells us something about that person, something significant and profound. It shapes the way he perceives the world, reacts to events, makes decisions, takes actions. Faith is one of the most important and influential forces in a person’s life, and the notion that we should not take a person’s faith into account is the extreme end of the privatization of religion.

All of that is absolutely true, but Mr. Smith fails to tell us how Mr. Romney’s Mormon membership would adversely affect the way he “perceives the world, reacts to events, makes decisions, [and] takes actions” such that he is not qualified to be president.

So it’s not necessarily bigoted or even unreasonable to take faith into account. I emphasize necessarily, because rejecting a candidate because “She’s an X and I hate X’s” is obviously bigoted and unreasonable. Yet it’s not necessarily bigoted or unreasonable to say that “This candidate has certain beliefs and values, emanating from his faith X, that lead me to worry he will not make the decisions I would want him to make as President.” Or “I’m concerned that a person who believes faith X is lacking certain qualities (rationality, empathy, humility, open-mindedness, etc.) I would want in a President.” Or even “I’m concerned that electing a person of faith X will have detrimental consequences for the spiritual health of our nation.”

All of the reasons you cite are valid potential reasons for opposing a candidate, but the only one cited by Mr. Smith is the final one listed above, and his logic for arriving at that opposition is faulty: he may believe Mr. Romney will use the presidency’s “bully pulpit” to promote Mormonism, but he fails to present any evidence for that belief. While I have not taken a poll (nor am I aware of anyone else who has done so), I believe most Mormons would consider it a very bad idea for Mr. Romney to use the bully pulpit of the presidency to promote Mormonism.

The best approach, I think, is not to label the arguments bigotry but to engage them.

While you do cite valid reasons for potential opposition to a candidate on the basis of religion, it’s rather telling that too many (a minority, perhaps, but still too many) evangelicals would maintain such opposition when a candidate’s positions on social and moral issues likely is very much in line with that of many (most?) of them. Arguably, the only option for an evangelical bent on maintaining one’s opposition to such a candidate is to say, “Yes, I know: but he’s Mormon.” And that, combined with a lack of evidence that Mr. Romney would use his bully pulpit to advance Mormonism, seems very much like bigotry.

[Kenngo1969]

Here is Mr. Smith’s piece:

A Vote for Romney is a Vote for the LDS Church

And here is part two of Mr. Dalrymple’s response:

Would a Romney Presidency Fuel the Growth of Mormonism? — Romney and Evangelicals, Pt 2

First let’s reconstruct Warren’s argument as charitably as possible. Warren is not the only evangelical who feels this way, and it’s a powerful argument if you grant its premises. There are several presuppositions here, but presuppositions which most Christians will grant. (1) There are true religions (or there is at least one) and false religions, true religious beliefs and false religious beliefs (how many false beliefs add up to a “false religion” is a question for another time).

Christ said, “Ye shall know them by their fruits” (Matt. 7:16). While I believe that “truth” undergirds my religious convictions, I also believe that whether one’s convictions produce good fruit is more important than the “truth” of those convictions, strictly speaking. I believe that “inasmuch as men do good, they shall in nowise lose their reward” (Doctrine and Covenants 58:27). Christ also said that God doesn’t give anyone—whatever one’s religion—stones when we ask for bread, serpents when we ask for fish, or thorns or thistles when we ask for fruit (see Matthew 7:9-10, 16). While not every good seed brings forth the same amount of good fruit—some bring forth thirtyfold, some sixtyfold, and some an hundredfold—good seeds and good fruit are good, period (see Matthew 13:8 ). Just because someone’s religious convictions produce, from my perspective, only thirtyfold or sixtyfold of good fruit is no reason for me to marginalize him or her—or to not vote for him or her as a presidential candidate.

(2) False religions and false religious beliefs are spiritually dangerous, and detrimental to a person’s present spiritual life and eternal destiny. (3) Voters should consider not only the political, but even the spiritual, consequences of their votes.

Which of the following beliefs is more “spiritually dangerous” and is likely to (at least potentially) be “detrimental to a person’s present spiritual life and eternal destiny”: (1) the belief that Christ visited the Americas (a belief which, as Mr. Smith points out, is unique among Mormons), or (2) a belief that abortion on demand ought to be totally unrestricted? Mr. Smith’s reasoning, pursued to its logical conclusion, would hold that the first belief is more dangerous than the second.

In certain quarters, the belief that some religions and religious beliefs are false already amounts to bigotry.

You’re right that simply labeling differing beliefs as “false” is insufficient to sustain a charge of religious bigotry. However, as I have already pointed out, it certainly seems like bigotry, if, when faced with a candidate whose positions on moral and social issues are consistent with those of a great many evangelicals, the only objection a voter can come up with is, “Yes, I know … but he’s Mormon.”

… Christians historically have attested that their beliefs are not merely therapeutic, but true in the old-fashioned sense of the word, and Christians have wrestled and argued and sometimes fought over the finer points of their doctrine because they believe it’s so utterly important to understand aright who God is and how God has made provision for reconciliation.

Yet, it’s telling that while there are varying beliefs among the various stripes of Christianity that were once considered so crucial that they were sufficient reasons for entirely new movements to spring up, when it comes to considering whether to vote for a Mormon for president—even if the Mormon candidate’s views on moral and social issues are likely to match those of a great many evangelicals—all of a sudden, the differences among the rest of Christianity fade into insignificance, their members are invited into the Big Tent, and only Mormons and Mormonism are left standing on the outside. Provided enough evangelicals are convinced that the only differences that matter are the ones between Mormon Christianity and the rest of Christianity, that sounds like a good formula for President Obama to win a second term.

The third presupposition [that voters should care about the spiritual consequences of their votes] seems straightforward. Shouldn’t Christians care about the spiritual consequences of their actions? Isn’t the spiritual health of the nation even more important than its political or economic health?

Which takes me back to the question I posed earlier. Evangelicals need to decide whether it would be more detrimental to the nation’s spiritual health to support a candidate who believes (for example) that abortion on demand ought to be totally unrestricted, or to support one who believes that Christ visited the Americas. And as I have also previously pointed out, although the only reason Mr. Smith offers that electing a Mormon president would be detrimental to the nation’s spiritual health is that it would advance Mormonism, this proposition is doubtful.

It’s not the[ ] task [of evangelical voters] to exclude Mormons from the Presidency for fear that this would lead Americans to take Mormonism more seriously.

I agree. I hope enough evangelicals share that view to support a Mormon if one were to emerge from the primaries.

Rather than basing my vote on something that seems, to me, so highly speculative [that electing Mr. Romney would advance Mormonism], I prefer to base my vote on the merits of the candidate.

Again, I hope enough evangelicals share that view.

[frankenstein]

is there a difference between not voting for candidate because of that candidate's religion, and voting for legislation because of one's religion?

[Kenngo1969]

is there a difference between not voting for candidate because of that candidate's religion, and voting for legislation because of one's religion?

Yes.

[frankenstein]

Yes.

can you articulate the difference between voting because of ones religion and voting against candidate because of the candidate religion.

Which of the following beliefs is more “spiritually dangerous” and is likely to (at least potentially) be “detrimental to a person’s present spiritual life and eternal destiny”: (1) the belief that Christ visited the Americas (a belief which, as Mr. Smith points out, is unique among Mormons), or (2) a belief that abortion on demand ought to be totally unrestricted? Mr. Smith’s reasoning, pursued to its logical conclusion, would hold that the first belief is more dangerous than the second.

In terms of religion, perhaps both are equal of supporting a false religion, which means eternal damnation is worse. Though, I would say both are equal in terms of ones religious beliefs. which goes to the question above.