Liberalism And Religious Intolerance

[Scott Lloyd]

A well-articulated opinion column from High Country News about religious intolerance playing a role in the presidential race.

I agree with this assessment by the writer:

No doubt, whenever political power and religious institutions mix, there’s opportunity for trouble. But it’s illiberal to judge candidates by their religion. It was wrong to judge John Kennedy solely for being Catholic in 1960. It was wrong to smear Obama with the jeremiads of Rev. Jeremiah Wright in 2008. And it’s wrong to judge Romney and Huntsman solely for their beliefs in 2011.

There are plenty of reasons to vote against either candidate. Judge ‘em by how they vote, how they govern and from whom they take money. But where they spend their Sundays is irrelevant.

Since my high school days, I have viewed liberals as, rightly or wrongly, priding themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness. Why is it considered cool by some in the left-leaning crowd to harbor anti-Mormon prejudice? Such an attitude by self-styled liberals has the stench of hypocrisy unsurpassed by anything I've seen.

[CARPE DIEM]

A well-articulated opinion column from High Country News about religious intolerance playing a role in the presidential race.

I agree with this assessment by the writer:

Since my high school days, I have viewed liberals as, rightly or wrongly, priding themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness. Why is it considered cool by some in the left-leaning crowd to harbor anti-Mormon prejudice? Such an attitude by self-styled liberals has the stench of hypocrisy unsurpassed by anything I've seen.

It's nearly impossible to argue with anyone about anything, who puts their ideology above the truth!

[frankenstein]

seems most if not almost all, the anti-mormon rhetoric towards LDS politicians is coming from the right leaning. And given that it is the "right" side of the left is the side which must convince people to vote for a mormon then shouldn't the title to this thread be "Conservatism and religious intolerance", but I guess such is a given. Conservatives are most likely the religious folks intolerant of the LDS faith and bigoted towards mormons.

And from a reporters ethics point of view, why label this thread with liberalism, when the article is not about liberalism or conservatism, right or left, but the article is about Americans in general not a particular cause.

But yes, I agree with the author of there are plenty of reason for vote against Romney other than his alleged religious allegiance.

[Scott Lloyd]

seems most if not almost all, the anti-mormon rhetoric towards LDS politicians is coming from the right leaning. And given that it is the "right" side of the left is the side which must convince people to vote for a mormon then shouldn't the title to this thread be "Conservatism and religious intolerance", but I guess such is a given. Conservatives are most likely the religious folks intolerant of the LDS faith and bigoted towards mormons.

I condemn religious intolerance from either camp. But it seems particularly hypocritical when coming from the left, given the reasons I've mentioned: their professed tolerance and open-mindedness. That's the point I'm making here.

And from a reporters ethics point of view, why label this thread with liberalism, when the article is not about liberalism or conservatism, right or left, but the article is about Americans in general not a particular cause.

It's the passage I quoted, about it being "illiberal to judge candidates by their religion," that is the focus of my agreement and this thread. Do you have any comment about that point?

But yes, I agree with the author of there are plenty of reason for vote against Romney other than his alleged religious allegiance.

I don't think that's a reasonably full or accurate summary of what the writer is saying.

[frankenstein]

I don't think that's a reasonably full or accurate summary of what the writer is saying.

Ben Long: There are plenty of reasons to vote against either candidate. Judge ‘em by how they vote, how they govern and from whom they take money. But where they spend their Sundays is irrelevant.

Frankenstein: But yes, I agree with the author [that] there are plenty of reason for [a] vote against Romney other than his alleged religious allegiance.

it is a good thing I was not trying to provide a summary of the full article.

But my statement about voting against romney is accurate to Ben Long's opinion.

[Scott Lloyd]

Ben Long: There are plenty of reasons to vote against either candidate. Judge ‘em by how they vote, how they govern and from whom they take money. But where they spend their Sundays is irrelevant.

Frankenstein: But yes, I agree with the author [that] there are plenty of reason for [a] vote against Romney other than his alleged religious allegiance.

it is a good thing I was not trying to provide a summary of the full article.

But my statement about voting against romney is accurate to Ben Long's opinion.

Your quotation sounded like spin to make it appear the columnist was emphasizing that there are plenty of reasons to vote against Romney, not his point that it is stupid to judge a candidate on his religious affiliation.

And I find it remarkable that you dispute that there is substantial anti-Mormonism among liberals, after you on this very forum have contributed to a thread spotlighting Bill Maher's stunningly idiotic statement about Mormonism.

[Analytics]

A well-articulated opinion column from High Country News about religious intolerance playing a role in the presidential race.

I agree with this assessment by the writer:

Since my high school days, I have viewed liberals as, rightly or wrongly, priding themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness. Why is it considered cool by some in the left-leaning crowd to harbor anti-Mormon prejudice? Such an attitude by self-styled liberals has the stench of hypocrisy unsurpassed by anything I've seen.

Just to be sure what we're talking about, the survey in question asked the following question:

Regardless of the specific candidates who are running for president, we’d like to know how you generally feel about some different traits. First, would you be more likely or less likely to support a candidate for president who is Mormon, or wouldn’t this matter to you?

70% of Democrats said it wouldn't matter. To me, that indicates quite a bit of tolerance and open-mindedness.

In contrast, what if Mormons were asked if they'd be more likely or less likely to support a candidate for president who was gay or an atheist? I'm guessing more than 30% of Mormons would be "less likely" to support such a person. Wouldn't such a result indicate that liberals are doing better in the tolerance department than Mormons?

Granted, liberals might be hypercritical because they pride themselves on being tolerant while Mormons don’t. But defending your own group on the basis that it doesn't even make pretenses towards tolerance doesn't seem like a good argument for superiority.

[Jeff K.]

Give most Mormons a good atheist candidate and Mormons will vote for them. I have never seen antyhing that would reflect the opposite. Put a poor minded and bad candidate who happens to be LDS against a very good candidate that is not, but is agnostic or atheist or buddhist or any ist, but an honest and good man trying to do the right thing. Well, I would wish the LDS candidate well, in the private sector. I think most LDS know that being a member of Christ's church doesn't make you special so much as more responsible for your actions. Candidates are not imbued with wisdom because they happen to be LDS.

Liberals disdain religion, they often seek to undermine it for their own philosophies and they disdain those who believe in it. I would say the hypocrisy resides in the left who want to make Romney out to be "weird" in order to undermine his candidacy. And we all know what weird is a code word for.

Let us at least be honest in regards to how the left looks at we Latter-day Saints and how they do indeed enjoy those whisper campaigns and see us as something alien. To deny that is to lose all credibility.

[ldsfaqs]

3, 2, 1..... Thread will be closed.

I'm told I will be banned if I speak my mind about a particular political ideology as such relates to the ideology of God, Truth, and Right, so I won't say anything.

[frankenstein]

Your quotation sounded like spin to make it appear the columnist was emphasizing that there are plenty of reasons to vote against Romney, not his point that it is stupid to judge a candidate on his religious affiliation.

got it, I did not intend that to make it appear it that was the entire point.

And I find it remarkable that you dispute that there is substantial anti-Mormonism among liberals, after you on this very forum have contributed to a thread spotlighting Bill Maher's stunningly idiotic statement about Mormonism.

I only pointed out that what I have read and seen, is that the majority of the anti-mormon rhetoric is coming from the conservative right. And I tried to be very careful with my word.

"Conservatives are most likely the religious folks intolerant of the LDS faith and bigoted towards mormons."

So amongst religious folks, who are anti-mormon, I would say most of those anti-mormon religious folks are Conservatives. That was my point. And never have I disputed anti-mormon liberals.

[california boy]

Give most Mormons a good atheist candidate and Mormons will vote for them. I have never seen antyhing that would reflect the opposite. Put a poor minded and bad candidate who happens to be LDS against a very good candidate that is not, but is agnostic or atheist or buddhist or any ist, but an honest and good man trying to do the right thing. Well, I would wish the LDS candidate well, in the private sector. I think most LDS know that being a member of Christ's church doesn't make you special so much as more responsible for your actions. Candidates are not imbued with wisdom because they happen to be LDS.

And I would suggest that most liberals would vote for a Mormon candidate if they agreed and supported that candidates positions. Like has been pointed out, it is those that are evangelic very religious right that would dismiss a candidate based on them being Mormon. The reason why most liberals won't be voting for Romney or Huntsman is not because of their religious affiliation, it is because of the pledges they have signed and their views on how government should control our lives. Romney's statement that corporations are people too certainly did not increase his standing with liberals for example.

Liberals disdain religion, they often seek to undermine it for their own philosophies and they disdain those who believe in it. I would say the hypocrisy resides in the left who want to make Romney out to be "weird" in order to undermine his candidacy. And we all know what weird is a code word for.

Let us at least be honest in regards to how the left looks at we Latter-day Saints and how they do indeed enjoy those whisper campaigns and see us as something alien. To deny that is to lose all credibility.

Liberals don't distain religion. What they distain is when religion is used as a weapon against intolerance of others. They distain the use of religion to justify in their own mind, laws that are better left to churches to govern. They distain the current Republican approach to campaigning for the presidency. The "I am more religious then the other guy and God told me to run for the presidency" does not play well with liberals. It should be about the issues. Not about what God has to say about the issues, but about what is best for the citizens of this country. God may or may not disagree. His vote is not counted in elections. There is a difference between believing in God's laws, having those laws being an integral part of your behavior and forcing others to accept those same religious beliefs through the laws of the country. Sometimes they both exist side by side for the benefit of society such as laws against murder. Sometimes they do not exist side by side such as adultry.

Simply put, if you are going to make religion in politics a conservative/liberal issue. can you name one candidate who has been dismissed by liberals because they belonged to a church? For that matter, can you name one liberal candidate for president who campaigned for office on the grounds that he was an athiest and for that reason others should vote for him????

It is the Republicans that are making it about religion. You see no talk about religion in the Democrat camp. You traditionally never have. Jeff you are agruing about a problem that is pretty much solely a conservative problem and somehow trying to make it a liberal problem. For heavens sake, you can barely read anything from a Republican candidate and not have it tied to religion.

[Storm Rider]

A well-articulated opinion column from High Country News about religious intolerance playing a role in the presidential race.

I agree with this assessment by the writer:

Since my high school days, I have viewed liberals as, rightly or wrongly, priding themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness. Why is it considered cool by some in the left-leaning crowd to harbor anti-Mormon prejudice? Such an attitude by self-styled liberals has the stench of hypocrisy unsurpassed by anything I've seen.

I have found that Liberals are only tolerant if you think exactly like they do. Their intolerance towers over everything if it does not exactly reflect their specific views. They are completely intolerant of foreign cultures; particularly those that have any form of patriarchal society. You can think anything thing you want as long as it is what they think.

I am not sure this is beneficialal thread, but those are my two very poor cents.

[thesometimesaint]

Storm Rider:

There is a good deal to distain in some of the most patriarchial societies. Look at the Burka as an example.

[Analytics]

Give most Mormons a good atheist candidate and Mormons will vote for them. I have never seen antyhing that would reflect the opposite. Put a poor minded and bad candidate who happens to be LDS against a very good candidate that is not, but is agnostic or atheist or buddhist or any ist, but an honest and good man trying to do the right thing. Well, I would wish the LDS candidate well, in the private sector. I think most LDS know that being a member of Christ's church doesn't make you special so much as more responsible for your actions. Candidates are not imbued with wisdom because they happen to be LDS.

Liberals disdain religion, they often seek to undermine it for their own philosophies and they disdain those who believe in it. I would say the hypocrisy resides in the left who want to make Romney out to be "weird" in order to undermine his candidacy. And we all know what weird is a code word for.

Let us at least be honest in regards to how the left looks at we Latter-day Saints and how they do indeed enjoy those whisper campaigns and see us as something alien. To deny that is to lose all credibility.

According to Scott’s own statistics, 70% of Democrats say it doesn’t matter to them whether or not a candidate is Mormon. That isn’t bad (especially considering the way in which the LDS Church has engaged itself in politics).

So how did you go from 70% of Democrats don't care whether or not a candidate is Mormon, to your broad acquisations about how all Liberals "disdain religion" etc.? Your own prejudice is showing.

[Analytics]

Liberals disdain religion....

What is so breathtaking about this statement is how dramatically false it is. Of the 535 members of Congress, we have the following breakdown:

Protestants: 304

Catholics: 156

Mormon: 15

Orthodox: 5

Other Christian: 3

Jewish: 39

Buddhist: 3

Muslim: 2

Other Faiths: 2

Unaffiliated 0

Don’t Know/Refused 6

Total 535

http://pewforum.org/Government/Faith-on-the-Hill--The-Religious-Composition-of-the-112th-Congress.aspx

One would think that if "Liberals disdain religion", that they'd be able to find at least one senator or representative, anywhere, that would admit to being unaffiliated with a religion.

[Analytics]

Despite the fact that nearly 20% of Americans are unaffiliated with religion, there are zero representatives in Congress who fit that description. Below is a link to an article written by an atheist who wants atheists to be represented in Congress. He talks about his own run for the state legislature in a Democratic primary in a very liberal district. He lost, and claims that he couldn’t even get the atheists to vote for him:

Many Atheists refused to support me because I was a white person running against people of color. It didn’t matter to these other Atheists that all three of my primary opponents would make frequent references to their god. It didn’t matter to these other Atheists that our state legislature already had many black and Latino members. They were so enslaved by knee jerk left-wing dogma that they could not bring themselves to support a white male over candidates of color. One colleague in free thought even angrily asked me why I would run against a Hispanic woman.

He goes on with another example of atheists not supporting atheism in politics:

There is only one major American political figure who has actually taken risks on behalf of achieving full equality for Atheists. That is the Governor of Minnesota, Jesse Ventura. He is the only governor in the United States to consistently veto the Day-of-Prayer resolutions passed by his state’s legislature. In so doing, he always mentions that Atheists are as much a part of his state as anyone else. On page 104 of his book, Do I Stand Alone?, he mentions Atheists in a positive way five times. Recently, when I tried to develop support, from within our ranks, for Governor Ventura’s possible reelection campaign, I was met with the objection from a number of nonbelievers that he was not liberal enough on welfare. Some left-wing Atheists also claimed they could not support him because he favored too little gun control. Some Libertarian Atheists said they could not support him because he favored too much gun control. Such attitudes are causing considerations extraneous to what is in the best interests of Atheism and Atheists to ruin support for the only major political figure in the country who has truly stuck his neck out for us.

http://www.atheists.org/The_Final_Taboo%3A_Electing_Atheists

If there is a single group that is sincere when it claims religious affiliation doesn’t matter to them in the voting booth, that group would be the atheists. The failure of the non-religious to be represented in congress proves that the scant level of anti-religion bigotry held by atheists isn’t nearly enough to compensate for the anti-atheists bigotry held by religious devotees.

[thesometimesaint]

Analytics:

Show me an Atheist with a better idea on how to run this state/nation. I'll vote for him/her. A good idea is a good idea wheather it comes from a Atheist, Hindu, Christian, Jew, Zoroastrian, or whatever.

Again a persons religion, or lack there of, is not a determinate for me on whom to vote for.

[Jeff K.]

Affiliation to a church does not make one religious.

You know I worked with the democratic party on an issue a few times. Each time I and others who were democrats were religious were shown the back of the bus without hesitation. Now was it because we supported their particular cause in a bipartisan way? Or was it because we were religious in nature. My democratic friends apologized for the ill treatment, their view was that they could best change the party from the inside to make it more tolerant of religion.

The last election of Obama strongly reflected this trend when the presidential candidate had to chastise his own party regarding their stance on religion. To me that is very telling. I think the polls have a weakness of showing affiliation, but not importance. A union member will often hold religion to be secondary to union concerns. That doesn't make him/her an ex baptist in the VA coal fields, but it does ensure they are a democrat.

So it appears that both President Obama and myself agree with the disdain that people have held towards religion from that party, it is often reflected in the somewhat smug elites who do indeed put religion to the back of the bus, along with those who adhere to it.

[Jeff K.]

Washington Post June 2006

Sen. Barack Obama chastised fellow Democrats on Wednesday for failing to "acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of the American people," and said the party must compete for the support of evangelicals and other churchgoing Americans.

"Not every mention of God in public is a breach to the wall of separation. Context matters," the Illinois Democrat said in remarks prepared for delivery to a conference of Call to Renewal, a faith-based movement to overcome poverty...

At the same time, he said, "Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering the public square."

As a result, "I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of the American people and join a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy."

[Jeff K.]

I note the liberal movement to make religious people "weird" or fanatics. It is a well worn tool.

[Analytics]

Analytics:

Show me an Atheist with a better idea on how to run this state/nation. I'll vote for him/her. A good idea is a good idea wheather it comes from a Atheist, Hindu, Christian, Jew, Zoroastrian, or whatever.

Again a persons religion, or lack there of, is not a determinate for me on whom to vote for.

Show me an Atheist with a better idea on how to run this state/nation, and I'll show you somebody who isn’t electable. I have no doubt that you, personally, would vote for an atheist, just as I have no doubt that over 70% of Democrats would vote for Mormon (just because 30% of Liberals said they'd be less likely to support a candidate who is a Mormon doesn't mean they wouldn't support a Mormon who otherwise was a perfect candidate).

As we take broad strokes at the religion-disdaining liberals in a thread about religious intolerance, let's keep things in perspective by remembering which group faces the most disdain and intolerance.

[frankenstein]

and which side was claiming "he's a muslim" so don't vote for him? Wasn't it John McCain who was "forced" to speak out against a supporter who claimed Obama is a Arab and in political speech we know that means "muslim'. And which side was it that constantly stressed "Hussein" in Obama's name?

To take the article in the OP and attempt to make it a statement entirely against those all those who are left of the most extreme right (what is a liberal? much like "activist judge" is a label placed upon a judge with whom the speaker does not agree, Liberal is nothing more than a label placed upon those who are standing left of those who claim be on the right side of the political issue of any given issue. )

Ben Long pointed out that both left and right need to stop with the nonsense of "voting no" simply due to religious affiliation.

[Analytics]

Affiliation to a church does not make one religious.

Yet being unaffiliated to a church makes one unellectable.

Washington Post June 2006

It’s funny that you originally claimed, without qualification, that Liberals disdain religion, and then use calls for religious tolerance by Liberals to support your point.

I note the liberal movement to make religious people "weird" or fanatics. It is a well worn tool.

The statistics show that two groups have 30% of their members who are "less likely" to support a Mormon: liberals and Evengalical Christian Republicans. This is despite the fact that Evangelical Christian Republicans agree with typical Mormon political positions on everything, while Liberals don't. So which group is more biased?

The tool of using religious biases to win elections was used, mastered, and worn out by the religious adherents who win political offices, not by the atheists who aren't even on the bus.

[Jeff K.]

Ben Long pointed out that both left and right need to stop with the nonsense of "voting no" simply due to religious affiliation.

I agree.

[thesometimesaint]

Analytics:

Apparantly the Tea Party isn't even as popular as Atheists or Muslims.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/17/opinion/crashing-the-tea-party.html?_r=3

Ps. I really can't stop anyone for voting for or against anyone because of religion or the lack thereof. The best I can do is educate them and hope for the best.