Considering how negative the presidential campaign has already become this year—going back to the GOP primary when Newt Gingrich landed a hell of a blow to Mitt Romney’s glass jaw with that hilarious and skull-fucking “When Mitt Romney Came to Town” film—it’s surprising to me that the “800lb Mormon elephant in the room” hasn’t become more front and center by now. I’d have thought that shoe would have already dropped.
I’m sure that Democrats would love to be able to paint Romney’s kooky faith as a 19th century Scientology—if the shoe fits, wear it!—but so far they don’t seem to have the stomach for what would be considered a low blow and gutter politics. You could argue that fair’s fair and that the GOP has spent the last four years zealously and feverishly painting Obama as a Muslim Communist from Kenya and as “the other,” but hey, that’s just Democrats for you.
No matter, someone’s going to do it for them, anyways and the Internet seems to be revving up for it, too. It’s a matter of days, probably, and not weeks, before all manner of Mormon memes start making their way all across the Internet. I kept waiting and watching for that moment to happen, but I think it can be said with assurance that it’s on the way, or underway already. The rumblings are there, let’s just say.
How long will it take before “#WhatMormonsBelieve” becomes a trending topic on Twitter or this video ends up on the reddit homepage with this title: “ENDLESS. CELESTIAL. SEX. What Mormons believe!”?
Not long, I’d wager.
To the majority of Americans, let’s face it, the Mormon belief system is a little hard to swallow. Nutty sounding? Yeah, that, too! And it’s not that I don’t find all religions suspect, it’s just that we don’t have actual legal records of Jesus or Mohamed being arrested for being con men, unlike Mormon founder prophet Joseph Smith. The average American doesn’t have that clear of an idea of what Mormonism is all about—-“clean cut white people, like the Osmonds; they have a big choir in like a tabernacle or someplace real big”—would seem to sum it up adequately for those of us who have never stepped foot in Utah—but if they did, of course, it would blow their everlovin’ minds.
Why hasn’t a journalist laid a rhetorical trap for Mitt Romney asking him first to say, politely affirm the seriousness of his faith. Check. Then lobbing him an innocuous question about the Book of Mormon and would reading it be of benefit to Christians maybe? Wait for the answer and then go in for the fucking kill, innocently asking Romney “Oh, yeah, can you explain to me that stuff in the Book of Mormon about the differences between black people and white people, because I didn’t really understand that bit? And what would the Book of Mormon have to say about someone of mixed race heritage, like President Obama, for instance? That whole Lamanite/Nephite thing he’s got going on. Does he truly understand Nephite culture, do you think, Governor Romney?”
It would be so easy to ask this, or a wide variety of similar enough “Mormon gotcha questions.” Cue another deer in the headlights moment for Mittens
Cue many!
(And did you see the footage of him reacting to the “Wimp Factor” Newsweek cover over the weekend? PRICELESS!).
Below, BBC documentary The Mormon Candidate. No one would say this is a balanced view of Mormons, but it sure is fascinating.
Below, “What Mormons Believe”: