Lawrence O'Donnell "Romney & Me" (What Romney can expect.) ADDED LINK

Whoops! I edited to add the dagnab link.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-odonnell/romney-me_b_76764.html

I give you the words of the holy Book of Mormon:

"And I beheld, after they had dwindled in unbelief they became a dark and loathsome and a filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of abominations."

Brigham Young, the most revered president of the Mormon Church, who marched his people all the way to the Utah territory because he so vehemently hated the laws of the United States, taught that sex with black people would kill white people. Instantly.

Brigham Young:

"Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so."

It took the Mormons ten years after Martin Luther King was killed--ten years--to decide to allow black men to be priests. They did so only after the president of the Mormon Church said he had a conversation with God in 1978 in which God finally decided it was time to allow black priests. Mitt Romney was 31 years old when he heard that lie. At 31, was Mitt Romney smart enough to know the Mormon president was lying about having been told by God that it was time to remove one racist tenet of the faith of his fathers? In 1977, at age 30, was Mitt Romney still accepting the racist position of his church? Does Romney really believe that God had to wait until 1978 to change his mind about this? Did Romney know that the Church had to change its racist policy in order to preserve its tax exempt status? We'll never know. No reporter will ever ask those questions because questions about the faith of his fathers are off limits even though, in an attempt to win evangelical Christian votes in Iowa, Romney dragged that faith into the campaign and asked to be admired for strictly adhering to it.

The more you know about Romney's religion, the more you want to ask him questions about it. Your religion was founded by an alcoholic criminal named Joseph Smith who committed bank fraud and claimed God told him polygamy was cool after his first wife caught him having an affair with the maid and who then went on to have 33 wives, and you really believe every word that he said and wrote? Do you really believe that the American Indian is genetically descended from Israelites? Would it shake your belief if DNA testing showed no such relationship between Indian tribes and Jews? Do you really believe that Jesus Christ came to America? Do you really believe that your possible general election opponent, Barack Obama, is black because his people turned away from God? Are you in favor of big increases in federal funding for Missouri or turning the site of the Garden of Eden into a national park?

was unable to recruit black athletes because of the stupid church policies and was gettin its ass kicked regularly in football and basketball by conference opponents who were not so restrictive in their recruitment practices.

But the tax exempt angle makes more sense. In those days the government still believed in church-state separation.

Now he's a bigot. I guess we all have the right to change.

:evilgrin:

I'm not defending anything Romney stands for. But O'Donnell has a major ugly chip on his shoulder where somebody else's view of God is concerned... and that shit just does not belong in American politics. Bigotry should not have a place at the Democrats' table. And Lawrence O'Donnell is being nothing but a bigot on this issue.

Shame on him.

There's a million reasons to think Romney would be a bad president. His religion does not belong on that list, period. It took Christians nearly a thousand years before they started saying, "Well, maybe that whole Crusade thing was a misdirected effort." But O'Donnell has a stick up his caboose about the Mormons taking 130 years to reject racism.

All religions get founded with a little something to be shamed about. All religions ask their people to believe in something a little outlandish. O'Donnell belongs to a church that still insists that wine turns into blood and that you should eat part of Jesus's body. He has a right to believe that. But he doesn't have the right to attack other peoples' beliefs. He should quit throwing stones. He should quit looking for motes in other peoples' eyes. He should stick to politics or he should shut up.

"All religions ask their people to believe in something a little outlandish."

:rofl:

Or think of it pragmatically. This kind of rhetoric costs the Democrats votes, but gains us none at all. If the point is to stir up antiMormon bigotry among the Republican base, I'd think that sort of thing would best be left until after Romney gets the nomination. The Mormons have renounced racism... O'Donnell's point is that they didn't do it fast enough. So it's bad tactics politically, it's irrelevant now that they have moved away from an ugly chapter in their past, and it's still dangerous and wrong to attack people for their religion.

But don't worry, I'm sure the bigotry will stop with just hatred against people who aren't like you, right?

The point is that they only say they have moved past it so they could get a tax break. O'Donnell is not a bigot. He is being honest. You are bigoted against him. For some reason, you want to think the Mormons' religion is not a cult. You are seriously ill-informed. O'Donnell is tolerating the Mormons, but he is telling the truth about them. What is he saying that is not true? See, you haven't got anything. If he is telling the truth, why can't you tolerate him?

should have simply informed. The Mormons should not try to hide their history and beliefs. All religions have weird beliefs. The Spanish Inquisition, Prostestant Reformation and other horrible things are out in the open for discussion.
So why hide the beliefs. I don't know whay Romney won't answer questions. Everyone is just curious. All the religious are out there so why hide?

not by a long shot - that would be Joseph Smith. There are no Hymns about BY - but there are several about Smith.

Look up the history. It's all there.