Check out this news from The Washington Post:
Mitt Romney's Mormonism isn't something his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination talk much about in public, but his faith appears to have stoked a whisper campaign, engineered by an Iowa staffer for Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.).
In an e-mail obtained by The Fix, former state representative Emma Nemecek, the southeastern Iowa field director for Brownback's presidential campaign, asked a group of Iowa Republican leaders to help her fact-check a series of statements about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including one that says: "Theologically, the only thing Christianity and the LDS church has in common is the name of Jesus Christ, and the LDS Jesus is not the same Jesus of the Christian faith."
The e-mail appears to be a thinly veiled attempt to push negative talking points on Mormonism to influence power brokers in Iowa, where Brownback and Romney are engaged in a struggle for socially conservative voters in advance of the state's Jan. 14, 2008, caucuses.
Religious bigotry has no place in American politics but tragically candidates have learned that you can sometimes win votes by dividing people based on fear and hate. Many conservatives have also attacked Senator Barack Obama’s church by suggesting that where he worships, the mainline Trinity United Church of Christ, is in someway radical because the gospel message preached there is one of inclusion and hope (inclusion and hope are Christian ideals, no question, but they don’t appear to be cherished concepts by many conservative activists and bloggers).
Let’s debate the issues and forgo the politics of personal destruction. Let’s debate Brownback’s opposition to a women’s right to choose, let’s debate Romney’s always changing positions on social issues, and let’s debate Obama’s position on the Iraq War and his call for more help for American families. Issues are fair game.
But let’s stay out of the bigotry game. America is better than that.
