Yesterday, James Taranto discussed the left’s cultural contempt for middle America. He quotes the American Spectator’s Jeffrey Lord, who argued that the Democratic Party’s elite around John F. Kennedy had built up a river of resentment against the non-elite–such as, at the time, Vice President Lyndon Johnson–but that Kennedy served as something of a dam, keeping it in check. Après JFK, le deluge:
Slowly this contempt for the American people spread to institutions that were not government, manifesting itself in a thousand different ways. It infected the media, academe and Hollywood, where stars identified with middle-America like John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Bob Hope and Lucille Ball were eclipsed in the spotlight by leftists like Warren Beatty and Jane Fonda.
This is certainly problematic enough, both for liberalism and the American culture it relentlessly targeted. But it’s also worth pointing out that the corrupting of cultural institutions creates a feedback loop, producing political personalities who feed on the spite and bigotry of the institutions from which they emerged. And this is the feedback loop with which Mitt Romney, as a high-profile Mormon candidate, will have to contend, as Idaho State professor Thomas C. Terry writes in Inside Higher Ed.
Terry begins the article with a story: He attended an academic conference in 2008, and when the lunch conversation turned to the election, and Mitt Romney, it took a sadly predictable turn:
“I couldn’t vote for a Mormon,” one professor said. There was some polite (or perhaps impolite) head-bobbing. “It’s a cult. Very intolerant, and their opinions about women, and, well … ” and his voice trailed off.
This, in academia, is apparently the norm, not the exception, Terry writes:
Mormons are excoriated in popular culture (see: “The Simpsons”) for the way their church was created by someone who was kind of a con man. And the translation of the Book of Mormon was accomplished with a hat. And the Golden Tablets have been lost. Hmmm. The stone tablets of the Ten Commandments were misplaced, too. And a burning bush talking? Really? It comes down to faith, as it should. Not some sort of ignorant bigotry.
Many of the academics consider themselves liberal, socially responsible, and broad-minded individuals, the repository of the best in America. They’re proud of themselves for voting for Barack Obama (a bit too smug maybe?). They would splutter and bluster and be generally outraged to be considered prejudiced. None would consider saying anything similar about African-Americans, Muslims, Jews, Native Americans . . . well, you get the idea. But anti-Mormonism is part of the same continuum that contains discrimination against any group. Why, then, is it allowable to publicly express bias against Mormons?
Walter Russell Mead responds by reminding readers the mainstream media has reflected this same anti-Mormon bias. He lists just a few of recent memory, such as Harold Bloom’s New York Times piece on his fears of a theocracy–though Mead thinks Bloom is probably “more elitist misanthrope than bigot; his hatred and loathing for Mormonism is part of a broader and deeper disgust with almost everything that the common people think or do in the contemporary United States.”
The Times is, of course, a repeat offender. Columnist Charles Blow expressed his own venomous bigotry on Twitter, and the Times stood behind Blow rather than discipline him, showing such bigotry to have a comfortable home at the Times. But in the Times’s defense, Maureen Dowd got in on the act too and, well, they can’t fire everybody, can they?
Salon’s Joan Walsh and Sally Denton joined in too, among others. As Mead asks in another post on the subject: “Bigotry is bad; how hard is that to remember?”
More difficult than it should be, certainly, for the “tolerant” left. And it is so difficult precisely because of the feedback loop. University professors shaping young minds casually express this bigotry, as do columnists and editorialists at major newspapers and online magazines. And David Axelrod, the Obama campaign strategist, has continued stoking these fires even after he promised to help put them out.
Perhaps he doesn’t mean to instigate widespread bigotry. But that’s the problem with acceptable ethnic and religious hate, isn’t it? The ignorance becomes so profound that the products of these institutions may not fully understand their own sheer moral failure.
Joseph Smith was a con-man, and he can't be compared to Moses and Jesus. One doesn't need to be a liberal to know this. That doesn't mean that Romney will be a bad president, but he is someone who is willing to believe a lie. Unfortunately, the Republican Party couldn't come up with a better candidate. He is the least crazy of a pretty sorry lot. Pawlenty would be a better president but apparently he isn't charismatic enough. The best thing that the Republicans can do is leave Romney's religion out of the election.
"But anti-Mormonism is part of the same continuum that contains discrimination against any group. Why, then, is it allowable to publicly express bias against Mormons?" n nI was struck by this a couple years ago when Prop 8 (outlawing gay marriage) was on the California ballot. At the time I gave a small contribution to the "no" campaign, in sympathy with a gay friend who earnestly wanted to marry his life companion. Afterwards, I was appalled to find that my money apparently had been spent on a scurilous anti-Mormon ad campaign. In the TV spot, a pair of missionaries are seen bursting into the home of a lesbian couple. They start rifling through their drawers, presumably looking for a marriage certificate. They find it and tear it up with wicked glee. The lesbians protest: "You can't do that!" The missionaries, oozing evil, respond: "Yes we can!" n nAfter the proposition passed, there were large, nasty protests outside the biggest Mormon church on L.A.'s Westside. This was horrible stuff, and I would not have expected it of liberals, if for no other reason under the principle of: two wrongs don't make a right. Gays and Mormons have something in common: both have been persecuted and stigmatized as freaks. But if the Mormon church comes down on the wrong side of a liberal policy position, then all that high-minded rhetoric about civility, tolerance and respect goes out the window.
What a ridiculous article, typical conservative Right wing projection. The group that is most suspicious of Mormons are evangelical Christians, who are hardly wild-eyed liberals
Graybell, would you mind giving us the benefit of your opinion of Mohammed? n nPlease include your home address with your response.
Heh, how do spell fatwa?
Joseph Smith grew up as a hard working farmer with his family creating a farm out of forest in western New York. If his goal was to become rich and influential as a preacher, he could have easily followed the path of so many professional ministers within one of the conventional denominations and been popular, respected and wealthy. n nInstead, from the beginning his religious proposition, that started with the effort of publishing an original 500 page book before he had any church membership committed to buying it, was almost calculated to make it hard for him to acquire wealth and prestige. In the fourteen short years that Smith lived after the organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he did not even have a home of his own until four years before his death, and it was often full of guests, including just arrived converts, while he and his wife slept on the floor rugs.
Joseph Smith was often arrested or just beaten by people offended by his challenge to conventional religion, and spent the winter of 1838-39 in a miserable hovel of a jail in Liberty, Missouri while his wife and children were forced out of the state at gunpoint under the governor's order of extermination if they remained. In June of 1844, instead of leaving the state, or calling up the city militia to defend him, he peacefully surrendered to Governor Tom Ford of Illinois on ridiculous charges of "treason" against the state, knowing he would likely be lynched while in custody. His expectations were fulfilled when a state militia unit stormed into the jail and killed Joseph and his brother Hyrum, and wounded Mormon apostle John Taylor. In a trial of the kind that became so familiar a century later in the South, the jury found the people who bragged about the murders to be "not guilty" because they committed "justifiable homicide".
The intimate correspondence of Joseph Smith is being published online. It is irrefutable evidence that Joseph Smith was absolutely sincere in his belief about the mission God had launched him on, even with a consciousness that he would meet a martyr's end as so many others had done who challenged the conventional beliefs of their day. nCalling Smith a "con man" is just as easy as calling Jesus of Nazareth a "blasphemer" who performed "miracles" by deception. The millions of Mormons have spent far more time than the rest of the world in learning the details of Smith's life and the coherence and boldness of his teachings. The unselfishness that Mormons are documented to manifest in their daily lives (in a recent University of Pennsylvania study) is a direct reflection of the example of Joseph Smith. n
I'll admit to not knowing much about Mormonism. What I DO know is that Romney is American in spirit, which can't be said of Obama, no matter where he was born. n nIt will be nice to have a President who loves America and ALL of her people. n nSomeone who will support our allies and not side with those who despise us. n nA man of good moral character, rather than a rabble rousing street thug. n nRomney was not my choice in the Primary, but as the presumptive nominee, he has my full support against Obama.
Given a choice between a man who believes the unprovable (that Joseph Smith was a prophet) and a man who believes an abject and satanic lie (that we need to be able to murder unborn children at whim), give me candidate ‘A’. Seven days a week and twice on Sunday.
This is a very good essay. Keep it up. You're going to be indispensable in the months to come. Full disclosure: my first serious girlfriend was a Mormon. As I recall she seemed perfectly normal but more importantly she was cute and smart. Romney isn't so cute anymore but he sure is smart.
The usual suspects who demonstrate intolerance where Mormons are concerned yet tolerate just about any outrage from Islam express similar intolerance where Christians are concerned. Perhaps these behaviors which are becoming so common had a role in eliminating intolerance by Christians toward Mormons.
Excellent article. n nBut we don't have to reach for anti-LDS bigotry to make this point. n nHow many of these professors, and other professionals, proudly state again and again that they "oppose discrimination in all its forms." n nYet, they are enthusiastic supporters of some of the worst kind of discrimination, namely government sponsored, government coerced discrimination, in the form of racial preferences in hiring, contracting, university admissions and scholarships by state government (even federal government) institutions. n n(I've won more debates in 30 seconds on this issue than I can count on my hand, by making the above point. The other party begins to babble incoherently when the above point is made.) n nAlso, it is enough to point out that they supported a presidential candidate, Obama, who was a member of a viciously racist church for nearly 20 years. n n
All of em are con men. Every last pope, revrum and ayatollah.
Of course, if one asked Dowd, Blow, Keller or Maher whether it is ever appropriate to mock or denigrate a person's religion, they would all vehemently say no. This is the cognitive dissonance of the Left, memorably illustrated in John Oliver's classic interview with the terminally clueless Froma Harrop on The Daily Show. I used to think that this was a deliberately aware position, simply a convenient double standard used for political discourse. But it seems that these people are neurologically impaired. Romney is the Evil Republican Threat. He must be stopped. Normal standards cannot apply. Even if the Right does the same, at least they spare us the irritation of pretending to hold such lofty moral and ethical standards. Such exquisite sensitivity to issues like bigotry, gender and, of course, religious and cultural tolerance. Not to mention superior intelligence, of course, something the Left likes to talk about despite the embarrassment provided by columnists like Dowd and Blow. Imagine a law firm with THAT title!
I think it is quite unfair to accuse our Enlightened Elite of singling out Mormonism for abuse. nThey are equally bigoted in their attitudes toward Bible-believing Protestants and traditionalist Catholics. They're just focusing on Mormonism this year because of Mitt. n nAnd, by the way, they have no problem with" Mormons" like Harry Reid —just as they have no problems with "Catholics" like Nancy Pelosi. n nBasically, they are quite fair! As long as you believe in and promote everything they approve of, as long as you toe the party-line 100%, you're okay. You're cool, you're bright, you're righteous!
From the left to the far left and to communism, the distance is very short. They are extremely intolerant. They have a complex of superiority. The claim for the exclusivity of knowledge.