Oh, Those Mysterious Mormons

There was uproar from the left in 2008 when Barack Obama's religion and church were called into question.

Claims that there should be no religious test came out like mosquitoes on a balmy summer night by the lake. The only reason the “Mainstream Media” ever finally spoke about Trinity United Church of Christ was because there was so much pressure put on them by Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Fox News Channel, and other “extreme right-wingers” on talk radio and a cable channel that, according to President Obama himself, was “out to get him.”

And I don’t believe any of the major media outlets ever did an exposé on Black Liberation Theology. A Google search offers a brief piece by NPR that mostly defends Wright and his beliefs, and an American Thinker piece that goes more in depth, but nothing from any “major” news source on the first page of results.

Yet here we are, less than one week before the Republican National Convention, and ABC has run segments during their prime time news show and NBC apparently ran an hour-long special… about Mormonism.


But the MSM is not biased.


Honestly, I have no issue with fair and equal treatment. But that’s not at all what is going on this election cycle, and this is one glaring example. I plan to discuss this issue more in the coming weeks, because the way I see it my silence might as well be an endorsement of the media’s spin on the issues.


The ABC segment I have seen (part 1 of 2) had ominous music playing in the background. Remember, this is ABC Nightly News. There should be no music, and there should be no bias. This is supposed to be news, not opinion like what we know we are getting when we turn on Hannity or Maddow’s show.

As Diane Sawyer introduced her segment, she said Mitt Romney's nomination next week will be “A profound and historic moment for the Mormon faith…” and then she closed that sentence by describing Mormonism, “Which is still a mystery to a lot of people.” That statement alone is media bias. She should just have just kept her mouth shut and run the piece, but instead she interjected her leading statement, which to the unsuspecting mind is truth and therefore must be considered.

Multiple times during the segment the words “controversial” and “secret” were used. It came across as a fair and decent piece, except for the messaging of the narrator, and it even appears the Church offered some information willingly.

Here is the clip; decide for yourself:

The “mainstream media” would not discuss Jeremiah Wright saying “God Damn America.” They didn’t want to talk about how Jeremiah Wright told his congregation the United States government developed the AIDS virus “as a means of genocide against people of color.” They simply would not touch it. The only time President Obama’s religion was ever significantly discussed during the 2008 campaign was when Obama held a press conference and threw Wright under the bus for political expediency.

And anyone who tried to discuss Black Liberation Theology? Racist. No more discussion, they were racist and that was that. They were trying to present Obama as “other” instead of accepting him for what he was.

Well what he was, then, was a candidate for the most important office in America and truly the most important office in the world. Yet we were not given any insight about him, from the people who are charged with the duty of offering us as much information as possible about our government and the people asking to represent us.



You don’t hear about Mormons teens doing drive-bys and shooting up neighborhoods. You don’t hear about gangs in predominately LDS neighborhoods. Mormons are respectful, decent people who live in tight knit communities. They take care of one another. Their churches are huge networking resources for them, as well as houses of worship where they gain strength and resolve. That is what a church should be.

Mormon neighborhoods here in Arizona remind me of the neighborhood I grew up in. Nicely maintained yards, nice vehicles, people dressed nicely when they are out about town shopping. People smile at each other and say hello. I don’t go to church, but everything I see makes me believe that The Church of Latter Day Saints would be a wonderful place to worship and make friends.

Can we say exactly the same things about the South side of Chicago?

Recently we were told by President Obama that "Chicago is an example of what makes this country great," so I don’t think I am out of line asking about the neighborhood Obama calls his home outside Washington D.C.

Crime is rampant in Chicago, especially on the South Side where Wright’s former church is located. Single parent homes… mostly mothers with multiple children, often from multiple fathers, are prevalent. I don’t know the circumstances behind all these situations, so I do not intend to judge any individual case. But when we are told by our President that a place is an example of America's greatness, I would kind of think he might be offering me better than the South Side of Chicago.

We are expected to treat President Obama as if he is no different than any of the rest of us, because that is the right thing to do. I do not see President Obama as un-American. I do believe he holds a set of values that are very different than mine, but I do not think those values make him a bad man. I have studied enough Marxism, specifically his theory called “scientific socialism,” to understand that Obama’s belief system are very close to that Marxism. It is a fact; I am not racist simply because I present facts, regardless of whatever the media and Democrat Party say.

In whatever short time ABC has devoted to Mormonism thus far, they have tried to persuade some number of people that there is something “controversial” and “secret” about the life Mitt Romney chooses for himself. Perhaps they are trying to paint Romney as “other.”

Now… the man who worshiped for 20 years in a house where the preacher said “God Damn America” and asserted that the United States government created the AIDS virus “"to maintain affluence at the expense of the Third World"?” Don’t question that.

But question the rich white guy, because the people of his faith believe something different than whatever “traditional” Christianity says must be true, and at some point in their past they had a family structure that was non-traditional.

Hey… gay people have non-traditional family structures don’t they? And isn’t it true that gay people are good and decent people, and that everyone should accept them? I know I accept gay people, and believe in many cases gay couples can provide good and loving homes to children.

Oh, and the gay issue is today, in this day and age, not over 100 years ago. Mormons have made changes in their own culture to become a more acceptable part of society over the last 120 years or so… but you would not necessarily know that if you paid attention to ABC Nightly News.

So why exactly is it we are being told that Mormons are “controversial” and “secret” and a “mystery?”


You think the media isn’t biased? Think again.


A closing note – I wrote the majority of this post before I saw today’s news. It seems today (8/24/2012) during a stump speech in Michigan, Mitt Romney made a crack about how nobody asks to see his birth certificate. He was in his home state; the state of his birth. This is all MSNBC is talking about tonight, it was the main on Huffington Post for a while, and even Fox News discussed it.

My personal opinion is that since Romney has continuously dismissed the “birther” concept, and President Obama himself has even made jokes about his own birth certificate, it should be no big deal… but that’s not good enough.

Conservatives need to be better than all of that. We clearly can see that the Democrat Party is not going to be respectful, so we must be. I believe one of the keys to political success in this election cycle is taking the high road. For all the accusations made by Obama and all his surrogates lately about Romney being responsible for cancer deaths, a tax cheating felon, a dog abuser, leading some “war on women,” et cetera… we need to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are the respectful and decent people we know ourselves to be. The high road is ours for the taking, because to quote Socrates, “When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.”

As always, I thank you for your time and I appreciate any feedback.