LDS political activism on gay marriage could impact Romney future

Fallout » Prominent fight could help and hurt White House bid

by Thomas Burr

Washington » The key role played by the LDS Church in passing California’s gay marriage ban could have long-lasting consequences – good and bad – for the future of the nation’s highest-profile Mormon politician: Mitt Romney.

The LDS effort could give Romney a crucial boost among evangelicals who wield great power in choosing the Republican presidential nominee. But it might leave the former Massachusetts governor an even tougher slog among a broader electorate.

“What the LDS Church just did in California and elsewhere, should help [Romney] because it sends a signal to evangelical Protestants that while we differ religiously, politically we are first cousins,” says Charles Dunn, dean of the School of Government at Regent University, founded by evangelical leader Pat Robertson.

Romney’s run for the Republican nomination this year was fraught with concerns that evangelicals wouldn’t cast their votes for a member of the LDS Church, seen as heretic, or even cultist, by some groups.

Romney lost the Iowa caucuses, for example, to one-time Baptist minister and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who drew out a large showing of evangelicals.

In his faith speech last year, Romney took pains to assert that his church would not dictate his actions in office.

But University of Iowa communications professor Bruce Gronbeck says the distance he tried to put between faith and public policy could be obliterated by the recent anti-gay marriage campaign.

 

“That gap being closed, not by individual Mormons, but by the church itself, is creating a problem,” Gronbeck says. “It will create a special problem if and when [Romney] re-gears his campaign.”

That may make some independents wary of voting for a Mormon candidate, he says, and stoke more fears of how much power the church has over its faithful members.

Romney has said it is “unlikely” he will run again for national office, though he was active in helping Republican contenders this election year and is widely considered a frontrunner for the 2012 nomination. He remains on the public stage, just this week weighing in against the proposed bailout of the U.S. auto industry.

If he runs again, Dunn says the Mormon effort in California may have curried Romney more favor, even if Romney wasn’t vocal about the issue.

“It helps,” Dunn says.

In stops in Iowa and New Hampshire during the Republican primary, Romney heralded his own efforts as Massachusetts governor to fight back against a court ruling allowing same-sex marriage. He cited “traditional marriage” as a key component of American life.

Romney didn’t donate any money directly to the Proposition 8 campaign, though his daughter-in-law, Jennifer Romney, contributed $1,000.

John Green, a professor at the University of Akron and a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, says the high-profile criticism aimed at the LDS Church over the Proposition 8 battle could endear some evangelicals. But the next presidential election is more than four years away.

“It depends on how well-remembered the involvement of Mormons in Proposition 8 is,” Green says. “It depends on how long-lived this criticism of Mormons is.”

Kirk Jowers, a Romney friend who heads the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics, says once the initial sting of criticism over the church’s involvement ebbs, the action shouldn’t really affect future Mormon candidates.

However, he added, “It may bring to the forefront again the question of whether some of the far-right base of the Republican Party have taken for granted a strong Mormon-Republican tie but see Mormons as merely useful rather than acceptable.”

tburr@sltrib.com

Are the Mormons going against their own beliefs? Yes!

Please see the following, which is also available at the Scriptures web-site:

THE
DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS
OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS

SECTION 134

A declaration of belief regarding governments and laws in general, adopted by unanimous vote at a general assembly of the Church held at Kirtland, Ohio, August 17, 1835. HC 2: 247–249. The occasion was a meeting of Church leaders, brought together to consider the proposed contents of the first edition of the Doctrine and Covenants. At that time this declaration was given the following preamble: “That our belief with regard to earthly governments and laws in general may not be misinterpreted nor misunderstood, we have thought proper to present at the close of this volume our opinion concerning the same.”

1–4, Governments should preserve freedom of conscience and worship; 5–8, All men should uphold their governments, and owe respect and deference to the law; 9–10, Religious societies should not exercise civil powers; 11–12, Men are justified in defending themselves and their property.

  1 We believe that ^agovernments were instituted of God for the benefit of man; and that he holds men ^baccountable for their acts in relation to them, both in making laws and administering them, for the good and safety of society.

  2 We believe that no government can exist in ^apeace, except such laws are framed and held inviolate as will secure to each individual the ^bfree exercise of ^cconscience, the right and control of property, and the ^dprotection of life.

  3 We believe that all governments necessarily require ^acivil ^bofficers and magistrates to enforce the laws of the same; and that such as will administer the law in equity and justice should be sought for and upheld by the voice of the people if a republic, or the will of the sovereign.

  4 We believe that religion is instituted of God; and that men are amenable to him, and to him only, for the exercise of it, unless their religious opinions prompt them to infringe upon the rights and liberties of others; but we do not believe that human law has a right to interfere in prescribing rules of ^aworship to bind the consciences of men, nor dictate forms for public or private devotion; that the civil magistrate should restrain crime, but never control conscience; should punish ^bguilt, but never suppress the freedom of the soul.

  5 We believe that all men are bound to ^asustain and uphold the respective ^bgovernments in which they reside, while protected in their inherent and inalienable rights by the laws of such governments; and that sedition and ^crebellion are unbecoming every citizen thus protected, and should be punished accordingly; and that all governments have a right to enact such laws as in their own judgments are best calculated to secure the public interest; at the same time, however, holding sacred the freedom of conscience.

  6 We believe that every man should be ^ahonored in his station, rulers and magistrates as such, being placed for the protection of the innocent and the punishment of the guilty; and that to the ^blaws all men show ^crespect and deference, as without them peace and harmony would be supplanted by anarchy and terror; human laws being instituted for the express purpose of regulating our interests as individuals and nations, between man and man; and divine laws given of heaven, prescribing rules on spiritual concerns, for faith and worship, both to be answered by man to his Maker.

  7 We believe that rulers, states, and governments have a right, and are bound to enact laws for the protection of all ^acitizens in the free exercise of their religious ^bbelief; but we do not believe that they have a right in justice to deprive citizens of this privilege, or proscribe them in their opinions, so long as a regard and reverence are shown to the laws and such religious opinions do not justify sedition nor conspiracy.

  8 We believe that the commission of crime should be ^apunished according to the nature of the offense; that murder, treason, robbery, theft, and the breach of the general peace, in all respects, should be punished according to their criminality and their tendency to evil among men, by the laws of that government in which the offense is committed; and for the public ^bpeace and tranquility all men should step forward and use their ability in bringing ^coffenders against good laws to punishment.

  9 We do not believe it just to ^amingle religious influence with civil government, whereby one religious society is fostered and another proscribed in its spiritual privileges, and the individual rights of its members, as citizens, denied.

  10 We believe that all religious societies have a right to deal with their members for disorderly conduct, ^aaccording to the rules and regulations of such societies; provided that such dealings be for fellowship and good standing; but we do not believe that any religious society has ^bauthority to try men on the right of property or life, to take from them this world’s goods, or to put them in jeopardy of either life or limb, or to inflict any physical punishment upon them. They can only excommunicate them from their society, and withdraw from them their fellowship.

  11 We believe that men should appeal to the civil law for redress of all ^awrongs and grievances, where personal abuse is inflicted or the right of property or character infringed, where such laws exist as will protect the same; but we believe that all men are justified in ^bdefending themselves, their friends, and property, and the government, from the unlawful assaults and encroachments of all persons in times of exigency, where immediate appeal cannot be made to the laws, and relief afforded.

  12 We believe it just to ^apreach the gospel to the nations of the earth, and warn the righteous to save themselves from the corruption of the world; but we do not believe it right to interfere with ^bbond-servants, neither preach the gospel to, nor baptize them contrary to the will and wish of their masters, nor to meddle with or influence them in the least to cause them to be dissatisfied with their situations in this life, thereby jeopardizing the lives of men; such interference we believe to be unlawful and unjust, and dangerous to the peace of every government allowing human beings to be held in ^cservitude.

Catholics to lend Mormons support

 Bishop William Weigand, head of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento, Calif., and former bishop of the Dioceses of Salt Lake City, lent his support to the LDS Church in a statement Friday.

 “Catholics stand in solidarity with our Mormon brothers and sisters in support of traditional marriage — the union of one man and one  woman — that has been the major building block of Western civilization for millennia,” Weigand said in the statement.

 “The ProtectMarriage coalition, which led the successful campaign to pass Proposition 8, was an historic alliance of people from every faith and ethnicity. LDS were included — but so were Catholics and Jews, Evangelicals and Orthodox, African-Americans and Latinos, Asians and Anglos.”