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Obama supporters rally around anti-Mormonism

Obama supporters rally around anti-Mormonism

What would you think if you were told that the most bigoted, intolerant, hateful, and xenophobic political messages this election cycle are being spread by Obama supporters?

From ridiculing and disrespecting the Mormon religion to spreading secretly taped videos recorded by an Obama supporter in a Mormon church, those on the left are sanctioning this particular form of bigotry because it’s all for the cause: Obama.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the media, where pages upon pages have been devoted to Romney’s religion. Vicious, anti-Mormon rhetoric, ramping up in the final days leading up to the election, has been spread by MSNBC and CNN hosts, the New York Times (they have devoted an entire section of their website to articles about Mormonism), Washington Post, and the Daily Beast’s Andrew Sullivan, to name a few. Writes Jason Horowitz in the Washington Post:

Romney accompanied his brothers-in-law to a Mormon temple, where, donning white robes, he solemnly watched as they posthumously baptized their father [Ann’s father] through a proxy, according to a person present at the ceremony.

Yesterday, Breitbart’s John Nolte revealed that Gloria Allred’s October surprise client is spreading anti-Mormon hate around the Internet.

In one recent segment, which I took notes on right after the Tampa convention, Rachel Maddow, having attacked the religion in various ways and perhaps sensing her own intolerance, offhandedly remarked that everything she had said was “ok” because Romney mentioned his faith in his convention speech, rendering it fair game.

A quick perusal of the search results for “Mormon” on Salon.com, which resulted in 5 pages of results, reveals such headlines as “Is Mormon underwear magic,” “What we should ask Romney about Mormonism,” and “Ann: Mormon missions are just like military service!”

One Salon reporter, Alex Pareene, provided the loophole through which the average unbiased, unxenophobic, unprejudiced liberal can be excused in his article, “The coming war on Mormon jokes.” Writes Pareene:

Religion is already a bit of a gray area, because it obviously affects a person’s political choices much more fundamentally than, say, being divorced or a cancer survivor or any number of other biographical details that punditsi and journalists instinctively dismiss as irrelevant when it comes to picking a president….The Mormon Church, it should be noted, is also a conservative political institution, making it just as much fair game for criticism as a labor union or an interest group.

An anonymous man, who secretly recorded videos in the Mormon church, said of his motivation:

I would love to embarrass Romney.  His promise to obey the Mormon “Law of Consecration” disqualifies him for the White House, in my opinion.

Lawrence O’Donnell attacked the religion on his show with remarkable hatred:

“Mormonism was created by a guy in Upstate New York in 1830 when he got caught having sex with the maid and explained to his wife that God told him to do it. 48 wives later Joseph Smith’s lifestyle was completely sanctified in the religion he invented to go along with it, which Mitt Romney says he believes.”

And of course, the left-dominated world of pop culture has embraced the bigotry. From the “Book of Mormon” musical to numerous Obama supporters’ ridiculing art, the mass of collective intolerance is overwhelming.

Why do Obama supporters get a free pass when it comes to spreading hate and intolerance for this particular religious belief? And as the Evangelical Christian movement seeks to cut out any anti-Mormon rhetoric, who are the bigots of 2012?

WAJ adds:  There has been a strong undercurrent of anti-Mormonism on the left for a long time. On December 4, 2008, I wrote about the anti-Morman boycott movement, It’s Time to Speak Out Against The ‘Mormon Boycott’:

Supporters of gay marriage have reacted with anger at the passage of California Proposition 8, which amended the California state constitution to provide that only marriages that fit the traditional definition (one man, one woman) will be recognized. The resulting protest movement has devolved into anti-Mormon bigotry which has been met with silence by liberal civil rights groups. The anti-Mormon fervor has become so nasty, and is growing at such a pace, that it is time to speak out against the “Mormon boycott.”

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