ARTICLE - A LATTER-DAY SAINT VIEW OF THE 'BOOK OF MORMON' MUSICAL

Head of Public Affairs, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

 Michael Otterson

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A Latter-day Saint view of Book of Mormon musical

Reviews of “The Book of Mormon” musical have been all over the entertainment media in the past few weeks. According to the reviews, the play sketches the journey of two Mormon missionaries from their sheltered life in Salt Lake City to Uganda, where their training and life experience proves wholly inadequate to the realities of a continent plagued by poverty, AIDS, genital mutilation and other horrors. While extolling the musical for its originality, most reviewers also make reference to the play’s over-the-top blasphemous and offensive language.
Dealing with parody and satire is always a tricky thing for churches. We can easily appear thin-skinned or defensive, and churches sometimes are. A few members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who have seen this musical and blogged about it seem to have gone out of their way to show how they can take it. That’s their choice. There’s always room for different perspectives, and we can all decide what to do with our free time.
But I’m not buying what I’m reading in the reviews. Specifically, I’m not willing to spend $200 for a ticket to be sold the idea that religion moves along oblivious to real-world problems in a kind of blissful naiveté.
Somewhere I read that the show’s creators spent seven years writing and producing “The Book of Mormon” musical. As I reflected on all that time spent parodying this particular target, I also wondered what was really going on with Mormons in Africa during those same seven years.
So I checked.
•The World Health Organization estimates that 884 million people worldwide don’t have access to clean water. This is a huge problem in Africa, not only because of water-borne diseases but because kids who spend hours each day walking to and from the nearest well to fill old gasoline cans with water cannot attend school. According to church records, in the past seven years, more than four million Africans in 17 countries have gained access to clean drinking water through Mormon humanitarian efforts to sink or rehabilitate boreholes.
•More than 34,000 physically handicapped African kids now have wheelchairs through the same Mormon-sponsored humanitarian program. To see a legless child whose knuckles have become calloused through walking on his hands lifted into a wheelchair may be the best way to fully understand the liberation this brings.
•Millions of children, meanwhile, have now been vaccinated against killer diseases like measles as the church has sponsored or assisted with projects in 22 African countries.
•More than 126,000 Africans have had their sight restored or improved through Mormon partnership with African eye care professionals in providing training, equipment and supplies.
•Another 52,000 Africans have been trained to help newborns who otherwise would never take a first breath. Training in neonatal resuscitation has also been a big project for Mormons in Africa.
•Then, of course, there is the tragedy of AIDS. A couple of weeks ago I attended a dinner where the Utah AIDS Foundation honored James O. Mason, former United States Assistant Secretary of Health. When he was working for the Center for Disease Control in 1984, a project to research the epidemiology and treatment of AIDS was established at the Hospital Mama Yempo in Kinshasha, Zaire. After visiting the hospital and examining the children and adults with AIDS, Mason described the death rate and the associated infections from AIDS as “horrific.” Mason, a Mormon, knows quite a bit about AIDS and a great deal about Africa.
•None of this includes responses to multiple disasters, like the flooding in Niger, where the Church provided clothing, quits and hygiene items to 20,000 people in six inundated regions of the country.
Of course, parody isn’t reality, and it’s the very distortion that makes it appealing and often funny. The danger is not when people laugh but when they take it seriously – if they leave a theater believing that Mormons really do live in some kind of a surreal world of self-deception and illusion.
A couple of weeks ago a review about the musical appeared at the New York Times from a Jewish writer who simply listed himself as Levi. “As someone of Jewish faith,” he began, “I take personal offense at this show….I cannot believe that New York, MY New York, where I was born and raised, would ever do such a thing. Shame on you, New York Times, shame on Broadway, and shame on all of us who stand idly by and do nothing while the faith of others is mocked. Religious and cultural Jews need not support such bigotry.”
Levi’s point was echoed by some reviewers, but by surprisingly few. So why hasn’t there been a huge outcry from Mormons?
In my opinion, three reasons. The first is that in the great scheme of things, what Broadway does with “The Book of Mormon” musical is irrelevant to most of us. In the great sweep of history, parodies and TV dramas are blips on the radar screen that come and go. Popular culture will be whatever it will be.
The second reason is related. Jesus’s apostle Paul put it rather well when he said that Christians seek out the positive and virtuous things in life. His New Testament phraseology was adapted in the early years of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in this formal Article of Faith:
“We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men…If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.”
Finally, if we Mormons really do follow Jesus Christ in our lives and look to him as an example, then it’s hard for us to ignore the injunction to turn the other cheek. There were times, to be sure, when Jesus roundly criticized others, but it was almost always for hardened hypocrisy. He dismissed the criticism he received personally and told his followers: “Do good to them who despitefully use you and persecute you.”
It takes strength of character to do this, but it’s the Christian mandate. Sure, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints pushes back when the record needs correcting or when legal rights need defending, but the world of popular entertainment is more likely to be met with a collective shrug than by placard-waving Mormon protesters.
Meanwhile, what of those thousands of remarkable and selfless Mormon missionaries who opted to pay their own expenses during the past seven years to serve in Africa while their peers were focused on careers or getting on with life? They have returned home, bringing with them a connection with the African people that will last a lifetime. Many will keep up their Swahili language or their Igbo dialect. They will keep in their bedrooms the flags of the nations where they served. They will look up every time they hear Africa mentioned on the evening news. Their associations with the people whose lives they touched will become lifetime friendships. And in a hundred ways they will become unofficial ambassadors for the nations they served.

Michael Otterson  | Apr 14, 2011 10:23 PM

NEWS - DESERET BOOKS NEW BOOKSHELF APP: MIXING THE OLD WITH THE NEW

Deseret Book's new BookShelf app: Mixing the old with the new

Published: Friday, June 17, 2011

By Nick Galieti, For Mormon Times

The out-of-print works of B.H. Roberts, “Key to the Science of Theology” by Parley P. Pratt and other works from church history are back on Deseret Book’s shelves — electronically.
Of the more than 1,500 titles in the recently released Deseret BookShelf app for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, about half are considered out-of-print books, said Matt McBride, director of digital products for Deseret Book.

It’s taken years of scanning and retyping to present these titles in a digital and indexed format, said McBride. Future out-of-print titles include the volumes in the “The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley.”
Deseret BookShelf app is free to download from the App Store and includes eight free e-books with download. The free books include “Jesus the Christ,” “Discourses of Brigham Young” and the best-selling “Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt.” Hundreds of other books, including recently released books, are available to buy. An Android platform version of the app will be made available late summer 2011.
The BookShelf app is designed “to provide a tailored e-reading experience for LDS books,” McBride said. “This app allows the reader to interact with the books in a way that facilitates gospel study.”
This interaction includes being able to search your entire indexed library, not just one title at a time. Future versions of the app will include tools for lesson or talk preparation — all without leaving the app, he added.
The number of books available to buy on the app increases daily. McBride anticipates that the app will “offer an increasing number of exclusive direct-to-digital publications.”
The app builds a personal e-book library which allows for reading and marking books. It also links directly to the scriptures when referenced by the authors.
“This is a remarkable era for publishers when content can be made readily available in whatever format suits your personal tastes,” Sheri Dew, president and CEO of Deseret Book, stated in a news release about the new e-book technology. “We now have the capacity to publish books that can literally be accessed anywhere in the world in a matter of moments.”
E-books, or electronic books, are growing in popularity the world over. According to Book Industry Study Group (BISG) research, the first quarter of 2010 saw e-book sales jump to 5 percent of total book sales from the meager 1.5 percent in 2009. Wired Magazine reports that Amazon.com sells more e-books than hardcover books with a ratio of 143 e-books to every 100 hardcover books.
Nick Galieti is a writer, documentarian, freelance record producer and sound engineer with www.independentmusicstudios.com. He authored the LDS devotional book “Tree of Sacrament” and has produced a number of documentaries and albums.

NEWS - WHITES 'NOT NORMAL' LIFE REQUIRES FAITH, PRAYER

White's 'not normal' life requires faith, prayer

June 23, 2011

By Rhett Wilkinson, Mormon Times 

Brooke White, a Latter-day Saint singer from Mesa, Ariz., who gained fame on “American Idol” when she told former judge Simon Cowell that she had never watched an R-rated movie, is now well down the winding road of the music industry.
And it's a road she's had to navigate with faith and a music style that is less than conventional.
White will be in Utah this week speaking to aspiring musicians at the Soundcheck Series in Salt Lake City, followed by a concert in Provo the next day. She's kicking off a tour with pop rock artist Jack Matranga, with whom she recently recorded an EP called "Gemini." Future tour stops include Rexburg, Idaho, and Lake Forest, Calif.

White admits to having “a lot of issues with confidence” in the past, but success has followed her appearance on “American Idol.” Since her top-five finish in 2008, White has also produced an album with 10-year “Idol” judge Randy Jackson. The single “Hold Up My Heart" rose as high as No. 47 on the Billboard Hot 100.
This Mormon has found the music industry to be far from black and white.
"Sometimes, there’s certain things you know you do and don’t do,” White said. “In this industry, there’s situations that are not clear, where you don’t know what route to take. There are situations that are not defined in a handbook or pamphlet; it’s not like I can just Google what I should do. It takes fine-tuned spirituality to know those answers."
Whether that’s having prayed in bathroom stalls during “Idol” or on the back of buses on road trips — scripture study and meditation come, no matter what, in the morning — improvising has been part of White’s life ever since she became a hot commodity.
“I always try to make right choices based on the principles and commandments given,” said White, who has been married for seven years. “But so much more, everything has to be tailored so much as individuals and keeping an open thought process and conversation in my prayers. I must think out of the box because this is not a normal life.”
It was as a teenager when White, after listening to the Beach Boys and the Beatles continually with her family, understood that her craft could best be fostered in the very time period she was taking herself to through her parents’ records. With a bit of country flavor thrown into the mix, White says it’s never been easy to categorize her style.
“I’ve always had a little bit of trouble living in a box,” she said. “We live in a day and age where people put you into a category, but I’m like a pop flurry of circumstance. I call it California country, where you had those times where the music was very melodic, very earthy, an Americana flair. But I have country-from-Arizona stuff that’s an influence. It’s all infused. At the end of the day, it’s not country, rock. It’s music."
White will perform June 24 at the Tahitian Noni International Ampitheatre, 333 Riverpark Way in Provo, from 7 to 10 p.m. Tickets are $10 for tandem general admission and $7 for single tickets.

PSALMS 56:8 - PUT THOU MY TEARS INTO THY BOTTLE

 

Put Thou My Tears Into Thy Bottle - Psalms 56:8

Written by Dr. John L. Lund

2011-06-15

It is true that the Roman emperors collected their tears in these beautiful Roman glass vases. Seal them with wax and delivered them to the grieving loved ones. Collecting tears in a cup was a practice common to the entire Mediterranean area and certainly not limited to the Caesars. However to have the tears of Caesar was a special honor.  Roman glass provided a beautiful and delegate vessel for fragrant oils and perfumes and for the collecting of tears.
Long before the founding of Rome in 753 BC there were tear cups, sometimes they were referred to as tear bottles or vases but they shared a common tradition, they were used to collect the tears of the mourners at the death of the loved ones. The tear shaped cups had a flaring rim which was placed under the eye to catch the tears as they were shed.  The cup was then corked or waxed and stored as a reminder of the life of the one who passed away.  The shedding of tears was a significant part of showing grief.  Professional mourners were hired at funerals. Jeremiah 9:17-22, Amos 5:16, in the Mishnah, Rabbi Judah ruled that “even the poorest in Israel should hire not less than two flutes and not one waiting woman".
King David was inspired to prophesy about the coming Messiah and many of the Psalms.  One of the most touching references to the Saviors supernal atonement and his suffering for the sins of the world was recorded in these words put though my tears into thy bottle Psalms 56:8. The moving and tender request that Heavenly Father not forget the tears of the Savior is consistent with Jesus acting as the great advocate for mankind in the Garden of Gethsemane.
“Listen to him who is the advocate with the Father, who is pleading your cause before him—Saying: Father, behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin, in whom thou wast well pleased; behold the blood of thy Son which was shed, the blood of him whom thou gavest that thyself might be glorified; Wherefore, Father, spare these my brethren." D&C 45:3-5.
Later in the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus made reference to removing this cup, Luke 22:42.  The Greek word used here was vessel or figuratively “my lot” or “mission” Isaiah calls it “a cup of trembling” Isaiah 51:17&22 or “a bitter cup” D&C 19:18.  Because of the pain and the sorrow and the tears of water and blood that will be shed.  The Shepherd of Israel, even Jesus had warned his sheep that they would have “tears to drink in great measure" as a consequence for their sins Psalms 80:5. Jesus would also drink from that cup, not because he sinned but to conquer sin and provide a way for the return of the children of God.  The cup that Jesus would drink may be identified in different ways “And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his father’s house, the offspring and the issue, all vessels of small quantity, from the vessels of cups, even to all the vessels of flagons." Isaiah 22:24.
Flagons were large goat skins filled with water or wine, the cup could represent a flagon of tears so great that no mortal stomach could accommodate it.  Or it could represent a tear cup full of tears a symbol of sorrow so great that only one who is possessed with divine power could drink it.  The meaning may have been the amount of grief and sorrow you're asking me to carry is a tear cup larger than I can bear.  There was no other way for God's will; the cup could not pass from him. He drank from the cup of trembling in tears even the dregs of the sinful tears of all humanity and fulfilled his divine mission. In a very literal way Jesus both drank the cup of trembling’s and filled the cup with his tears for the sins of all of God's creations, truly a bittersweet cup.  Put though my tears into thy bottle. Psalms 56:8.

NEWS - HUNTSMAN ENTERS SOUTH CAROLINA GOP CONTEST

Thursday, Jun. 23, 2011

Huntsman enters S.C. GOP contest

By JOHN O’CONNOR 

A day after asking U.S. voters to give his record a long look, former U.S. ambassador to China and Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman officially entered the 2012 S.C. Republican presidential primary race Wednesday.
Huntsman, 51, pitched his business experience with his family’s chemical company, noted his foreign policy credentials and argued Utah led the country in economic growth during his time as governor.
He toured a Columbia grill manufacturer before heading to S.C. GOP headquarters to drop off his $35,000 filing fee and sign filing documents. He was accompanied by his wife, Mary Kaye, and four of their seven children.

“Tune into to what we’ve done as governor and who we are as people,” Huntsman told several dozen party activists, touting high-tech jobs, and his experience balancing Utah’s state budget and beefing up its reserve funds. “Some people run away from their record.”
Huntsman said it was “unacceptable” and “un-American” that the United States is less productive and less competitive than it used to be.
He enters a crowded Republican field – six candidates officially have filed in South Carolina – that could grow more crowded. Polls show Huntsman is largely unknown among voters, and that a significant portion of those who know him react unfavorably to the former governor.
Huntsman’s Wednesday appearance used the same location that former S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster used to announced his 2009 Republican gubernatorial campaign. McMaster’s consultant, Richard Quinn, is working for Huntsman, and the two candidates share much of the same message and imagery: statesman-like experience; a focus on economic development; and allegiance to the optimism of former President Ronald Reagan.
McMaster finished third in the 2010 S.C. GOP primary. How will Huntsman succeed where McMaster failed?
“The voters agreed with that message,” said McMaster, who traveled with Huntsman on Wednesday. “They chose another candidate. He clearly is uniquely qualified, uniquely experienced among all the very fine candidates, and I think the people of South Carolina will like him.”
Huntsman began trying to make those connections Wednesday, touching a key S.C. political issue by calling on President Barack Obama — Huntsman’s former boss when he was ambassador to China — to step into and oppose the National Labor Relations Board complaint against Boeing’s opening of a plant in North Charleston. The agency contends Boeing started the plant to escape unionized workers in Washington state.
S.C. Democrats painted Huntsman as a political moderate, which could spell trouble in a state highly influenced by the conservative Tea Party movement.
Huntsman’s faith also could be problematic in South Carolina. Like Mitt Romney, who finished fourth in the 2008 S.C. Republican presidential primary, Huntsman was raised a Mormon, a faith that has roused suspicion among evangelical Republican voters in the Palmetto State.
Huntsman said Wednesday that he is a Christian, adding spirituality is important. “I believe in God. … I’m very proud of my Mormon roots.”
Also Wednesday, the Washington, D.C.,-based Club for Growth released its assessment of Huntsman — complimenting his tax-cutting and tax-reform record but critical of his record in limiting budget growth. South Carolina has an active Club for Growth chapter, and much of its leadership loaned their support to the candidacies of Gov. Nikki Haley and former Gov. Mark Sanford.
“In the end, it is Gov. Huntsman’s spending record that is inexcusable,” the Club for Growth report concluded. “There is now widespread recognition that the next President must address the enormous threat posed by federal spending that threatens national bankruptcy. Huntsman’s failing grades on controlling state spending raise serious questions about whether he would be equal to that task.”
“If you do the math,” Huntsman said in response,” you’ll find the percentage of spending that went toward government actually decreased.”

NEWS - JOSEPH SMITH PAPERS WEBSITE OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED

Joseph Smith Papers Website Officially Launched

Written by Patrick Dunshee
09 June 2011

Patrick DunsheeThe Joseph Smith Papers website, which has been in beta since October, was officially launched last week.

The purpose of the Joseph Smith Papers project is to make widely available all the writings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. The goal is to publish meticulously prepared transcripts of every document Joseph Smith wrote, dictated, or had others write for him, along with detailed notes helping explain the context and substance of the writings.

The project also includes documents Joseph Smith received and kept in his office, such as incoming correspondence. Much of the content will be published in 20+ printed volumes, but the website will contain the comprehensive set of documents—thousands in all—free of charge.

You can view the new Joseph Smith Papers site at josephsmithpapers.org.

Site Scope
---------------------------
At present, the website includes images and transcripts of about 425 documents, including five of Joseph Smith’s personal journals, the earliest copy of dozens of revelations, and the Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book.

The site features biographies of hundreds of people mentioned in the writings as well as a Google map tagged with hundreds of place markers and descriptions of locations relevant to Joseph Smith’s life. There is also a chronology of the Prophet’s life, a glossary, and a library with maps, charts, and historical photographs.

As you navigate the site, you can see transcripts and images of every page of every document. You can see the original handwriting and zoom in to view individual words and even letters. Seeing the yellowing paper and the actual writing on the page, with smears and ink spills and all, really makes Church history come alive. It’s like having these 180-year-old documents in your hands.

You can see the original documents for many of the letters, revelations, minutes, and other historical records. Each of the document transcripts is tagged with people, places, events, topics, and dates. For example, when the name “Oliver Cowdery” appears in a letter, you can click on it and a short biography pops up.

This tagging also allows faceted searching. From the Search page, you can narrow the pool of search results to include only those documents that have Emma Smith tagged, or relate to Adam-ondi-Ahman, or were written in 1835, and so on.

Project Challenges
-----------------------------------
Because the site deals with complicated transcripts, including canceled text, insertions, illegible portions, and multiple scribes for some documents, it has been a challenge to construct an XML schema that handles all possible scenarios, and it has taken months and months of work to get the transcripts to render correctly on the website.

With so many moving parts to the project, from text specialists deciphering hard-to-read words to genealogists researching the lives of Church history figures to archivists obtaining rights to publish images of documents held by other libraries, it is a constant challenge to coordinate all the steps and make sure all the pieces are in the right place at the right time.

As such, the Joseph Smith Papers project is a tremendous effort. But we know the site will help all people—from historians to teachers, writers, students, and others—get to know the life of the Prophet Joseph better, to find the materials they need to better examine and contextualize and illuminate his life.
Future Roadmap

Although the site is officially launched, we still have many more documents to add. We plan to release new documents every few months. Some of the key plans of the upcoming roadmap include the following:

Provide a comprehensive calendar of documents that lists all known Joseph Smith documents, including those no longer existing.
Expand the chronology to more fully capture Joseph Smith’s day-to-day life.
Upload excerpts from the Joseph Smith Papers television series, where Joseph Smith experts talk about the papers and the life of the Prophet.

For a brief overview of the project and the website, see the introductory video on the front page at josephsmithpapers.org and this introductory essay.

ARTICLE - PHANTOM SCRIPTURES DEBUNKED

Phantom scriptures debunked

Katie Barlow

We’ve all been in that church meeting where we hear someone say, “In the scriptures, it teaches that with great power comes great responsibility.” We pause for a moment and think, “Wait, that’s a quote from a Spiderman movie, not from the scriptures.” Or the seminary student who stands in front of the class saying, “One of my favorite scriptures is when Christ says, ‘I never said it would be easy; I only said it would be worth it.’” If you look, you won’t find that doctrine anywhere because it doesn’t exist.

Often in LDS culture we hear people summarize or quote scriptures not found in the delicate pages between the covers. It also happens when we attribute a saying to a general authority who never spoke the actual quote.

The Spiderman hybrid scripture in the first paragraph was a fake quote intended to portray the idea in D&C 82:3 where it starts out saying, “For of him whom much is given much is required. . .  .” Although similar in theory, it fails to portray the true meaning in the scriptures. There are two very different ideas being suggested, and one is straight out of the scriptures. The other is in a Hollywood production.

Another instance of someone struggling to find a passage that simply doesn’t exist occurred when a woman approached another at church and asked, “Where in the scriptures is the story of the footprints in the sand and how when we are at our lowest points, it is then that God carried us? I can’t seem to find it.” Although it is a beautiful poem that instills hope in others, it is just a poem—not scripture.


Robert Line, an instructor at the Institute of Religion adjacent to the University of Utah, has taught seminary and institute. He has also been an adjunct faculty in the religion department at BYU. With 20 years of experience in Church Education, Line said there is an axiom in the Church Educational System (CES) that says: If you can’t document it, don’t tell it.

Line said one of the more famous examples of a quote supposedly given by a general authority is the “generals in the war in heaven” quote. It starts out with “The youth of the Church today were generals in the war in heaven,” and ends with the statement that when they return to heaven “all in attendance will bow in your presence.”

In a letter to mission presidents and CES instructors, Elder Packer said, “I did not make that statement. I do not believe that statement. The statement, on occasion, has been attributed to others of the First Presidency and the Twelve. None of the Brethren made that statement." (To read the news story on this, go here.)

Although there are many ways misquotes like this happen, Line gave two main reasons for why he thinks these spurious, or fake, quotes originate and spread. The first is that a quote is said and repeated but not documented. Two or three people later, someone attributes it to one of the Brethren in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. As it moves further along, someone attributes it to someone like President Hinckley or another apostle.

“They get passed along like oral traditions, but no one documents the original source,” Line said. “That comes back to the whole premise of if you can’t document it, don’t tell it. I think things get transmitted orally and no one ever stops to check.”

When undocumented doctrine is brought up in class, Line tries to encourage his students to focus on doctrines that are true.

“Rather than inventing a doctrine that may or may not be true, maybe go with doctrines that are true,” Line says to his students. “But let’s not concoct doctrines that try to make us feel better when there is no sound basis for them.”

The second main reason Line suggests often starts at a regional or stake conference or other gathering where a general authority will speak.  Someone will take notes and put it on the internet, and it will go viral. In their notes, they say “Elder Perry said this at regional conference,” when in reality he might not have said it. That’s just what the person heard and what they’re writing in their notes. Maybe they missed a word or heard it differently than what was said. Maybe they took it out of context and didn’t pick up on the subtle tone or sarcasm.

Line gives three points of caution and warning to his students as well as other teachers.

 “If you can’t document it, don’t tell it. Use only correlated quotes [from official Church sources]. Ask yourself if your attempt as a teacher is to edify students or if you are trying to sensationalize the doctrine or are trying to create a following,” Line said.
 
A few other non-scriptural phrases include:

• Spare the rod and spoil the child.
• Happiness is the object and design of our existence.
• The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
• Faith precedes the miracle.
• God helps those who help themselves.

QUOTE - C.S. LEWIS

Importance
===========

Christianity, if false, is not important.
If Christianity is true, however, it is of infinite importance.
What it cannot be is moderately important.

~C. S. Lewis~

NEWS - THERE HERE, THEYRE SQUARE, GET UED TO IT!

They're here, they're square, get used to it!

Jun 15th 2011 by E.G. | AUSTIN

MY COLLEAGUE'S post below got me thinking about Mormons. There's a significant possibility that 2012 will be the year that America confronts the question of whether a Mormon can be president. It seems like a question with an obvious answer ("I don't know. Can he?"). But surveys in recent years have consistently found that a large minority of voters are set against the idea, and the prejudice may be even more deeply rooted among a Republican primary electorate that is, as my colleague puts it, "struggling to decide which it hates most—being a Mormon or being sensible."
I'd like to step back from the question of whether a Mormon can be president to take up a more fundamental query: why don't people like Mormons? No other faith, save perhaps Islam, catches so much flak in the United States. Even among Americans who aren't hostile to Mormonism, the default position seems to be scepticism or ridicule rather than anodyne appreciation for the varieties of religious experience. That's weird. Every other major religion can count on being defended by members of other faiths. Here's Mitt Romney, for example, in his 2007 speech on faith:

I believe that every faith I have encountered draws its adherents closer to God. And in every faith I have come to know, there are features I wish were in my own: I love the profound ceremony of the Catholic Mass, the approachability of God in the prayers of the Evangelicals, the tenderness of spirit among the Pentecostals, the confident independence of the Lutherans, the ancient traditions of the Jews, unchanged through the ages, and the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims. As I travel across the country and see our towns and cities, I am always moved by the many houses of worship with their steeples, all pointing to heaven, reminding us of the source of life's blessings.

Yet Mr Romney doesn't call out any special aspect of Mormonism; he only says the word once in the speech, and the editorial comment offered is that his faith is "the faith of [his] fathers." (That's actually quite similar to Jon Huntsman's tendency to refer to his "Mormon heritage".) I like Mormons, as it happens, and here are some of the reasons why:
• Mormonism is the only major world religion that originated in the United States, and the religion reflects some of America's flagship virtues as well as some of the country's notorious flaws. Mormonism has an entrepreneurial ethos, a willingness to break with tradition, a restless tendency to travel and a focus on the world outside of America's borders, a healthy dose of hucksterism and audacity, and an anti-authoritarian stance to government that is sometimes obscured by its paternalism at the family level. I'll leave it to the commenters to sort out which are the virtues and which are the flaws.
• Most Mormons are unusually upstanding citizens and, correspondingly, you rarely catch a Mormon doing something horrible. Except for Ted Bundy, a convert, the worst person on this list of "infamous Mormons" is Butch Cassidy.
• They are, as a group, really nice.
There are aspects of Mormonism that are objectionable, but not more so than we see in other religions. For example, they do a lot of missionary work, which some people find offensive, but that's not unique to the Latter-Day Saints. And some Mormon fundamentalists display grotesque personal behaviour, but that's true of some fundamentalist anybodies. The biggest difference between Mormonism and other widespread world religions is that Mormonism is relatively new; that may contribute to the scepticism about it, which contributes to the faith's insularity, which contributes to additional scepticism, and so on. I would hope that if Mr Huntsman is moved to make a speech addressing his Mormonism (or if Mr Romney does so again) that they talk in a bit more detail about their faith in particular. That could yield some insights. As a young man, for example, Mr Huntsman spent two years as a missionary in Taiwan. That experience seems to have spurred his lifelong interest in China, and led him to learn Mandarin, which helped him become the ambassador to that crucial country, giving him the base of expertise my colleague describes below. That's a valuable skill set in a top-level politician, and it was his religion that led him there.

ARTICLE- INFERTILITY: WHEN CHILDREN DONT COME EASILY

 i wanted to add this to my blog for a few of reasons.

1- i have known, and do know people who are struggling with this issue. 

2- even tho i have one child, i struggle with this myself.

3-People need to be aware of the feelings of others who struggle with this, and are continuously reminded that they arnt like everyone else.

i realize that to the others it might not seem like i feel empty, and wanting, because i have had the chance to have a child of my own. but i still sympathies with their situation, because i have never been able to have ANOTHER baby...let alone, get pregnant but one other time, to which i lost the baby 6 weeks in.

i want another child. but for whatever reason, God hasnt allowed me that other child for almost 17 years. im 44. my clock is almost done. im almost too old to raise another child. 

i realize i do have a blessing, in my child. but id like to give my child a sibling, and my husband a child thats from his own blood.

i believe my son is a complete miracle. again, i AM blessed. 

i try to tred lightly in the areas where others suffer with what i DO have. i know the heartache. i remember, i still feel it. ill never forget the thought that God had abandoned me, and made me different. nor the way i felt when everything you hear at church has to do with 'Families' (and to one whos struggling, it seemed as if all you ever heard was about how to be a great mother. ive been there.

i cant make anyones life easier. 

but i know you are NOT alone. and im not talking about having a Father in Heaven whos always there looking over you, im talking about your not the ONLY woman...whos dealing with this issue.

there are thousands of you. all feeling the same way. at the end of this article is a link to the authors web page. maybe you can find some support there. we should have a support in this faith for just such heart breaking issues.

MICHELLE

Infertility: When Children Don’t Come Easily

Kerstin Daynes
I have sat in Relief Society, looking around at the sisters, certain that none of them knew how I felt. I was sure that they had no clue what it was like to feel the deep sorrow and grief caused by infertility. To others, my body looks fine and they would never suspect that inside, my soul is bruised, tender, and aching.

Though I often felt that no one knew my pain, I have learned with time that I was wrong. Perhaps every woman does not know what it is like to be infertile, but without question, every woman knows what it feels like to be saddened by experiences of life. Our circumstances are very different, but we have all wept because of heartache, misery, disappointment, and guilt when life does not turn out the way we desired or felt that it should. How common we really are!

With statistics showing that infertility affects 15 percent of the population, it could be said that each of us knows someone who is dealing with infertility—it could be a friend, a sister, a son, or, it may be you. It is incredibly painful to learn that you cannot do what comes so easily for most people. And, when you are in a religious culture that is focused on families, feelings of deep sorrow can emerge frequently.

Regardless of if we are fertile or infertile, stepping back and thinking about infertility differently can offer hope, peace, and feelings of inclusion.

If You Are Dealing with Infertility
It is easy to feel as though you live on the social periphery where you are observing everyone else living the ideal life. You feel forgotten. You feel like you do not belong. But, at the same time, you, I, and all people with this challenge have a choice. We can choose to feel isolated and alone, or we can find meaning and depth to life as it is. Here are some ideas to consider:

1. Recognize your specific, individualized plan.
We all do it—we all look at our lives and how they are deficient compared to everyone else. These moments of comparison do us no good. We need to remember that in addition to His overall plan, Heavenly Father also has an individualized, specific plan for each of us. We are each given opportunities to learn and grow, tailored to our personalities, that are different from anyone else’s opportunities. It is in these differences that we can see that we are being tutored, that our souls are expanding, and that our hearts are being purified.

2. Find life in other realms.
Parenthood is only one realm of life. Each realm, even if it lasts but a small season, can add dimension, provide growth, and change us in ways that other realms cannot. Additionally, each realm can provide new friends, draw new talents from within us, and allow us to be something greater than we were before. These realms, of course, do not replace parenthood. Rather, they are what we do in the interim. Some of these other realms include volunteering, receiving an education, enjoying a career, being a temple worker, or developing a talent.

3. Educate rather than retaliate.
Be ready for questions and comments—they come when you least expect it! When you come up with exact phrases to use at specific times, you will be prepared instead of being caught unaware. When you are prepared, it is easier to remain calm and in control. Try to make your responses positive and non-offensive. If we respond negatively, we further isolate ourselves and push ourselves away from others. When we focus on educating and helping to raise awareness, we foster relationships of love and understanding.

4. Preserve your marriage.
Be careful that infertility and the quest for a child does not become a priority over your marriage relationship. Fortify your marriage by going on dates, setting goals unrelated to baby-making, learning what your spouse needs from you and providing it, and being sensitive to the emotions of your spouse. Establish “time-outs” when you keep yourself away from anything associated with infertility. If you can preserve a good relationship with your spouse, you will endure this trial.

5. Do the things you know you should.
Going to the temple won’t improve sperm count. Reading your scriptures will not open damaged fallopian tubes. But doing these things shows that we are choosing to have faith. If we want miracles to happen and doors to open, we need to do all things we have been told to do. Even after our expression of faith, the outcome of our actions may not be the exact miracle we seek, but we will have increased ability to cope, strength to endure, and ability to see interim blessings.

For Those Seeking to Support
It can be difficult to support someone dealing with infertility. As with any trial, it is challenging to know exactly what to say and how to say it without offending or causing an overwhelming emotional response. No matter who you are, you are in a unique position and have a valuable opportunity to help your friend or family member find the capacity to endure this trial with greater success. Here are some things to consider:

1. Think about what you have to offer.
In a time of trial, has someone reached out to you in a way that you appreciated? Could you apply those acts of love to the situation with your friend or family member who is dealing with infertility? We all know what it feels like to feel alone, betrayed, and to be pained by a life experience. We can take what we have learned to reach out and help another.

2. Learn more about infertility.
Since statistics show that 15 percent of the reproductive-age population experiences infertility, to the other 85 percent, fertility is what is known. That 85 percent might not know that infertility affects so many people, what the causes of infertility are, and the treatment options that are available. Educating yourself about infertility gives you a greater advantage as you reach out to comfort your friend.

3. Recognize that every case of infertility is unique.
Diagnoses are different, which means the path to building a family is different for every couple. It is very easy for every infertile couple to be lumped into one category and for others to assume that what worked for Couple A will surely work for Couple B. Instead of telling your friend about someone else’s experience, focus on what your friend is talking about and learn about his or her specific experience.

4. Understand that infertility is real.
“Trying too hard” or not understanding human reproduction doesn’t cause infertility. Some causes of infertility may require medical intervention, medications, or even surgeries to improve chances of conceiving and carrying a child to full term. Some couples may never be able to conceive. A couple can be at the beginning of the road, while another is seasoned by years of disappointment. Another couple may be dealing with multiple miscarriages, while another is wondering why baby number one came so easily and number two has been a struggle. Recognize that the suffering, frustration, and anger are real.

5. Acknowledge challenges across the life span.
The topic of families and children comes up regularly as we give lessons and plan activities. It is important to acknowledge families come in all shapes and sizes. Additionally, it is healthy to acknowledge that life is far from perfect for any of us. Be honest about how these imperfections affect us and consider how the gospel can fortify us during these adversities.

Infertility does not have to be the “elephant in the room.” Rather, it is something that can be addressed and acknowledged with genuine love and understanding. As we consider our similarities and put forth a bit of effort, we will recognize that we have the capacity to reach out to offer—or accept—peace, comfort, and a place of belonging.

Hope in Treatment
If there’s one thing fertility specialist Dr. Russell Foulk could say to couples struggling with infertility, it is: “Infertility is a treatable condition.”

Foulk, a nationally recognized reproductive endocrinologist with Utah Fertility Clinic, says one of the biggest misconceptions about infertility is that it’s difficult to treat.  “As long as you can find the factor that’s keeping them from getting pregnant, you can overcome it.” In fact, Foulk says 95 to 98 percent of infertility cases can be overcome with normal processes.

Another misconception that keeps couples from treatment is that treatment is prohibitively expensive, but with lack of ovulation being the largest cause of infertility, most couples can be treated for $2,000 or less—a far cry from the tens of thousands many expect. “There are some people that have to do the expensive stuff, but the vast majority do not need that,” he says.

Psychologists have found that being infertile has the same psychological impact as being diagnosed with cancer, so even taking initial steps to treat it provides astounding relief to couples. “Don’t continue to suffer with it,” he says, knowing from his own experience, together with his wife, how frustrating infertility can be. “One of the things we see is a lot of relief. Once couples see what’s wrong and find a way to cur it, then it gives them hope and they know they will eventually achieve a successful outcome.”

*To read more about this topic, see the LDS Living magazine May/June 2011 issue.

—
Kerstin Daynes is the author of Infertility: Help, Hope, and Healing. She also maintains a website for LDS couples trying to understand infertility within a gospel framework. For more information, visit ldsinfertility.org.

NEWS - IS THE 'BOOK OF MORMON' MUSICAL ACCURATE SATIRE?

Is the 'Book of Mormon' musical accurate satire?
Author: Hal Boyd See all from this author
Source: Deseret News
13 June 2011

Earlier this year, Scott Rudin, a producer for "The Book of Mormon Musical," told NPR about a conversation he had with a man who attended a preview showing of the production, which on Sunday night won nine Tony awards, including best musical. "I left the Mormon Church after my mission (in Africa)," said the man, who had brought his children to the show. "(I) married a Jewish woman and now I live in Montclair, New Jersey. My kids know nothing about my upbringing. They have learned more from this (musical) than they have from all their lives with me."

Rudin's anecdote echoes a common refrain that the show's producers have repeated since before it opened, that "The Book of Mormon," while obviously satirical, offers an accurate depiction of Latter-day Saint doctrines and culture. Indeed, the musical's high-profile creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, have claimed in multiple media interviews to have "done their homework" when it comes to LDS teachings.

While theater experts and media pundits have praised the musical, others have pointed out the play is not only profane and inaccurate, but actually an attack on faith more broadly. GetReligion.org's Mollie Ziegler wrote that the play "is an entirely New York phenomenon. It mocks general religious belief using Mormon characters. It's made by media elites (media elites whom I generally like, admittedly) and enjoyed by a class of people who go to Broadway musicals."

Likewise, New York Times columnist David Brooks observed that "The central theme of 'The Book of Mormon' is that many religious stories are silly."

He said the play's message boils down to this: "Religion itself can do enormous good as long as people take religious teaching metaphorically and not literally."

"The only problem with 'The Book of Mormon' (musical)," Brooks continued, "is that its theme is not quite true. Vague, uplifting, nondoctrinal religiosity doesn't actually last. The religions that grow, succor and motivate people to perform heroic acts of service are usually theologically rigorous, arduous in practice and definite in their convictions about what is True and False."

A Deseret News analysis of the show's content, based on its official script and lyrics, reveals several errors and misrepresentations that go beyond the bounds of generalization for comedy's sake — and Mormonism isn't the only subject with which the Tony award-winning musical takes liberties. And those liberties can create important misperceptions.

"Of course, parody isn't reality, and it's the very distortion that makes it appealing and often funny," Michael Otterson, the public affairs representative for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wrote in a recent piece in the Washington Post. "The danger is not when people laugh but when they take it seriously."

Misstating LDS beliefs
----------------------------------------------
The musical's book and lyrics contain multiple inaccurate representations of LDS beliefs and practices.

Some of the errors are arguably inconsequential, and likely the result of efforts to simplify for plot's sake. They include the specifics of how missionaries receive their proselytizing assignments, LDS mission rules and nuances regarding Lamanites and Nephites in the actual Book of Mormon.

Yet, "The Book of Mormon" musical also contains less benign inaccuracies, like misrepresenting Joseph Smith's history, distorting Mormon epistemology and misconstruing the church's teachings about the afterlife. For example, the song "All-American Prophet" puts to music a version of the Joseph Smith story that is riddled with errors both small and large. In one notable example, the angel Moroni sings, "Don't let anybody see these plates except for you (Joseph)," and then toward the end of the song, during the scene depicting Smith's death, the prophet sings "Oh God, why are you letting me die without having me show people the plates? They'll have no proof I was telling the truth or not they'll have to believe it just cuz. Oh. I guess that's kind of what you were going for."

Contrary to the musical's portrayal, historical records indicate that at least 11 people signed testimonies indicating that Smith had shown them the Golden Plates. The accounts of these witnesses are printed in each copy of The Book of Mormon — but the song makes no mention of them.

In another song titled "I Believe," the character Elder Price repeatedly sings the refrain "I am a Mormon and a Mormon just believes." The refrain is interspersed with lines like "(God's) plan involves me getting my own planet." This statement, like many in the song, represents an out-of-context fragment of doctrine that, on its own, is inaccurate.

In the song, "Spooky Mormon Hell Dream," the character of Elder Price finds himself dreaming that he is in the midst of Hades' flames with the likes of Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler and others. While the scene's absurdity lends itself easily to laughs by poking fun at strict LDS mission rules, it nonetheless dramatically distorts the LDS conception of a multi-tiered heaven (three kingdoms of glory) and outer darkness. The "hell" depicted in the musical is much closer to the fire-and-brimstone preaching of early Puritanical ministers.

Yet, Mormons are not the only ones misrepresented. The musical's characterization of Ugandans is perhaps worse.

Uganda
----------------------------------------------
"Uganda is depicted as an entirely rural place, where many people still practice female genital mutilation (which is actually illegal in Uganda) and no one has a cell phone or access to the outside world. (In reality, between one-third and one-half of Ugandans have cell phones.)," wrote beliefnet.com blogger Jana Reiss, who is also a Mormon.

Additionally, the Ugandan characters in the musical are, with a few exceptions, angry, aggressive, sexually charged, physically ill, naive and vulgar. Some viewers could construe this extreme stereotyping as a form of racism — the producers and writers call it satire. Nevertheless, it is striking that Ugandan characters utter all the swear words in the musical except one.

Profanity
----------------------------------------------------
According to the musical's complete book and lyrics, those Ugandan characters utter plenty of swear words. The production contains at least 49 instances of the "f-word," and approximately 26 additional expletives.

It also includes sexual innuendos, references to HIV, rape, genital mutilation and homosexuality.

Newsweek, in a cover story on Mormons last week, wrote that "...the Book of Mormon may be the most obscene show ever brought to a Broadway stage."

The New York Times review of the play made a similar statement, calling it "more foul-mouthed than David Mamet on a blue streak."
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i would hope, that this musical wouldnt be the end-all/be-all to someones personal view of my faith. but simple entertainment, alone. 
it might not be an exact representation of my faith. and im sure theres been allot of liberties taken on behalf of my faith (it is a bit different than others).
but then, the members arnt perfect either.
there are allot of us who do things the church would question (have questioned) and will continue to question. and yet, were still there trying to make ourselves right. 
so, with imperfect people, comes a view of a fractured faith.
its not.
the church is perfect, its members are flawed.
and so it is with this musical.
flawed. slightly 'different'. 'off'.
ive heard some of the music myself. i didnt find it too grossly wrong, to be honest. it was pretty accurate.
but then, im no molly mormon either.
i consider myself to be a MODERN mormon. :)


MICHELLE

NEWS - 'BOOK OF MORMON' MUSICAL WINS 9 TONY AWARDS

'Book of Mormon' musical wins 9 Tony Awards
Published: Sunday, June 12, 2011

By Mark Kennedy, Associated Press

NEW YORK — The profane and hysterical "The Book of Mormon" took home nine Tony Awards on Sunday, including the prize for best musical, a considerable achievement for a pair of first-time Broadway playwrights known more for their raunchy cartoons featuring potty-mouthed kids.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of the Emmy Award-winning "South Park," found a kindred soul in Robert Lopez, who co-wrote the Tony-winning "Avenue Q," and all three found themselves with plenty of awards when they collaborated to mock Mormons and send-up Broadway itself.

The show, which netted honors for best musical, best book, best direction of a musical, best score, best featured actress and four technical awards, came in with a leading 14 nominations and was the heavy favorite for the top musical prize.

"War Horse" — a World War I tale about horses told with puppets and actors — won five Tonys, including the best prize award. The revival of "The Normal Heart" and "Anything Goes" both won three each.

Mark Rylance won the best acting award for a play for his powerful role of Johnny "Rooster" Byron in Jez Butterworth's "Jerusalem." Just as he did three years ago when he won for "Boeing-Boeing," Rylance quoted a poem by Louis Jenkins, an obscure poet from Minnesota.

"Unlike flying or astral projection, walking through walls is a totally earth-related craft, but a lot more interesting than pot-making or driftwood lamps," he said to the bemused crowd. When asked later why he had recited the poem, he said, "I don't know. I was getting a little bored."

Norbert Leo Butz won for best actor in a musical. Butz, who plays a frumpy FBI agent hot on the heels of a con man in "Catch Me If You Can" took home his second Tony. His previous win was in 2005 for "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels."

Sutton Foster won for best actress in a musical and gave a tearful speech. "It doesn't feel like a job," she said of the Cole Porter musical "Anything Goes," which also won best musical revival and earned Kathleen Marshall an award for best choreography.

Frances McDormand was declared the best leading actress in a play for portraying a South Boston blue-collar woman who reconnects with a high school boyfriend in David Lindsay-Abaire play "Good People."

The best direction of a musical award went to Casey Nicholaw and Parker for "The Book of Mormon." Parker — as well as co-writers Stone and Lopez — later returned to the stage to accept the Tony for the best book of a musical.

Collecting the best musical prize, a subdued Parker, who tied Josh Logan of "South Pacific" with four Tonys in one evening — said he'd be remiss if he didn't thank his late book co-writer — Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon religion.

"You did it, Joseph! You got the Tony!" Parker said looking skyward and holding up his award.

The top directing prize for a play went to Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris for the weepy British import "War Horse." "We quite like it when people cry," Morris said.

Nikki M. James, who plays a potential love interest to the pair of missionaries who travel to Uganda in "The Book of Mormon," dedicated the award to her dad, who died while she was in high school, and to her nephew Ozzie, who was born with kidney problems.

The show is one of the hottest in town and James said even cast members are having trouble getting tickets for their friends and family. "It's amazing to know you're going to walk out there every night and know you're going to see a house full of people," she said.

Larry Kramer's "The Normal Heart" won the best revival prize and two actors from the AIDS drama — Ellen Barkin and John Benjamin Hickey — also won. Barkin, making her Broadway debut, was declared the best actress in a featured role in a play, while Hickey took home best actor.

"It's the proudest moment of my career. Being involved in something this important is I think a once-in-a-career opportunity," said Barkin. Hickey warned his family in Texas that they'd better not be watching the Heat-Mavericks game instead of the Tonys.

Kramer's historic play about the beginning of an epidemic that has killed millions won the Tony 26 years after it was first mounted at the Public Theater. "Learn from it and carry on the fight," he said. "Our day will come."

John Larroquette, in his Broadway debut, won the award for best actor in a featured role in a musical for "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." He thanked his co-star Daniel Radcliffe, who was not nominated, saying that without the "Harry Potter" star he'd be "home, sitting in my underwear, watching this on television."

Away from the television cameras, "The Book of Mormon" won for orchestration, sound design, scenic design of a musical, score and book of a musical. "War Horse" won for best sound design of a play and best scenic design of a play, and "Priscilla Queen of the Desert" got the costume award for flamboyant fantasies created by Tim Chappel and Lizzy Gardiner.

Host Neil Patrick Harris began the show at the Beacon Theatre with an exuberant, facetious song about how Broadway isn't just for gay people any more. The number featured a bevy of dancing nuns, sailors, flight attendants and Mormons: "Attention every breeder, you're invited to the theater!" He later mocked "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark," sang with Hugh Jackson and rode one of the puppet horses of "War Horse."

The ceremony was rolling along fine until Brooke Shields had to be bleeped after forgetting the lyrics and flubbing an opening song with Harris. "I can do eight performances a week but I can't read a TelePrompTer," she joked.

NEWS - ROMNEY LEADS IN SOUTH CAROLINA -POLL SAYS

Wednesday, Jun. 08, 2011

Romney leads in S.C., poll says

Palin, who has not said whether she will run, in second place

By GINA SMITH

A new poll affirms former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as South Carolina’s early favorite for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
North Carolina-based Public Policy Polling quizzed 1,000 South Carolinians who usually vote in GOP primaries and found Romney leading with 27 percent support. The poll’s margin of error is 3.1 percent.
Romney, who also ran for president in 2008, also is in first place in three other early-voting Republican contests – in New Hampshire, Nevada and Iowa, according to polls by Public Policy, which made its reputation polling for Democratic candidates.

But Larry Sabato, politics professor and director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, expects Romney to lose his S.C. lead, in part because of his Mormon faith.
“You have to combine a poll with the political reality of a state,” Sabato said. “There’s a reason why (Romney) does so well in New Hampshire, because he was governor nearby in Massachusetts. They know him.
“There’s a reason he’s doing well in Nevada. There are lots of Mormons there.
“But (Christian) fundamentalists are about 60 percent of the Republican base in both South Carolina and Iowa, and they have a problem with Mormons. These are small leads (in South Carolina and Iowa), and we know for sure that Romney has problems in both states. We know that from 2008, and not that much has changed.”
During his 2008 run, Romney spent millions in South Carolina only to finish a disappointing fourth.
That showing has led to widespread speculation that Romney will not campaign much in South Carolina this year as he seeks the GOP nomination. Still, Romney was briefly in the state last month to meet with a group in Irmo to discuss the economy.
According to the poll, Romney’s strongest following is among South Carolinians who say they are moderate Republicans. He received 41 percent of that group’s support to Sarah Palin’s 15 percent.
The poll also found Palin is South Carolina’s second-favorite Republican. The former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate, who has not said whether she will run in 2012, garnered the support of 18 percent of those surveyed.
Both Romney and Palin have close ties to S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley. Romney’s political action committees were heavy contributors to Haley’s 2011 campaign. Palin appeared in Columbia to endorse Haley before the GOP primary.
Former chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza Herman Cain and former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, both of bordering Georgia, were tied at 12 percent each in the poll.
The remainder of the field polled in the single digits: U.S. Rep. Michele Bachman of Minnesota at 9 percent, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas at 7 percent, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty at 4 percent and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who was U.S. ambassador to China under President Barack Obama, at 2 percent.
Joel Sawyer, Huntsman’s S.C. director, said his candidate’s low showing is because so few South Carolinians know him.
“The poll results are largely a function of name ID,” Sawyer said. “Gov. Huntsman has been in the state one time. He’s been exploring the idea of running for president for less than a month.”
Sawyer added if Huntsman decides later this month to run, S.C. voters can expect to see him frequently.

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thats serisouly very difficult for me to recon with, as SC is largely a baptist state, sitting in the middle of the "bible belt". and for the most part Baptists have had issues with the doctrines of The Church of Jesus CHrist of Latter-Day Saints.
very hard for me to see that ROmney would be ahead in the polls there.
perhaps, hes the "lesser, of two evils" lol
MICHELLE

NEWS - MITT ROMNEY MORE COMPETATIVE W/OBAMA IN POLL, BUT RELIGION REMAINS A STICKING POINT

Mitt Romney more competitive with Obama in poll, but religion remains a sticking point
June 08, 2011|By Michael Muskal | Los Angeles Times

Republican presidential hopeful, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney answers questions during a town hall style campaign event at the University of New Hampshire.

Mitt Romney is stepping away from the rest of the field for the GOP presidential nomination and is increasingly competitive against President Obama, though the former Massachusetts governor faces a potential problem because of his religion, according to the Quinnipiac poll released on Wednesday.

A quarter of Republicans or GOP-leaning independent voters said they would back Romney over the rest of field for the Republican nod. It was the best showing for Romney in months and the first time any Republican had garnered so much support from his own party, a sign that Republicans may be coalescing a bit in these early days of the 2012 presidential campaign.

Still, Romney faces a possible political problem because of his religion, the Quinnipiac poll and other surveys have found. Overall, only 45% said they had a favorable opinion of the Mormon religion, while 32% said they had an unfavorable one. Other polls have found different numbers, but most agree that between a quarter and a third of voters say they would have a problem voting for a Mormon, creating a tough situation for Romney and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who is flirting with a presidential bid.

“The fact that less than half of voters have a favorable view of the religion is likely to be a political issue that Gov. Mitt Romney, and should his campaign catch on, Gov. Jon Huntsman, will have to deal with as they pursue the White House,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

The nation’s anti-Mormon feelings aren’t new. In 2007, Romney tried to defuse the issue with a speech stressing common values.

According to the poll, Romney has opened up a lead over the rest of the GOP field, which has been seen as weak and fluid. Ranking in second place was Sarah Palin, the party’s 2008 vice presidential nominee, who received 15%. Palin has yet to announce her intentions, though she captured the media’s attention in her recent bus tour of patriotic sites in the East.

Palin, however, did better in the Reuters/Ipsos poll also released on Wednesday. That gave her 22% to Romney's 20%. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

In the Quinnipiac poll, Herman Cain, a businessman, continues to draw attention in third place with 9%, while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, are tied at 8%. Rep Michele Bachmann gets 6% and former Minn. Gov. Tim Pawlenty is at 5%.

The Quinnipiac poll is based on telephone interviews with 1,946 registered voters, conducted from May 31 to Monday. It has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points, though some questions dealing with GOP primary preferences have smaller samples and a higher margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

Perhaps most significantly for Romney, the poll found that in a trial heat against Obama, the former businessman runs close, losing 47% to 41%. It is the best showing by a Republican candidate in the poll; Pawlenty loses by 12 percentage points and Palin by 17.
Voters remain split on whether Obama should be reelected, with 46% favoring and 48% opposed.
It was the second day of good polling news for Romney. On Tuesday, the ABC/Washington Post poll had Romney ahead of Palin, 21% to 17%. The poll gave Romney a three percentage-point margin over Obama, but the race was a statistical dead heat.

The ABC/Washington Post poll was based on 1,002 telephone interviews conducted Thursday through Sunday. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
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i. myself, dont see Romney getting the presidential seat, based on the religion factor alone.
it held him back before, and it will continue to hold him back.
and, i have no doubt, it will also effect Hunstman...as he is LDS as well.
for whatever reason (and its mostly false info they have indoctrinated within themselves) people cant get past the Mormon issue.
were NO diferent than anyone else.
we work, have lives, kids, and most of us have allot of kids.
we DO NOT have more than one wife!
we DO NOT intend to try to convert the nation once we have a Mormon in office!
NOT all of us are ultra conservative, some of us are actually very modern...like me.


Romney has a proven track record for taking bad financial situations and recovering them to a flow of sustainability.
He COULD very well start this country back on its feet again...
but well never see that happen, if the nation thinks his faith comes ahead of his Job.


MICHELLE

NEWS - IS AMERICA READY FOR A MORMON PRESIDENT?

03:04 PM ET

Is America ready for a Mormon president?

By Dan Gilgoff, CNN.com Religion Editor

(CNN) - Mitt Romney’s campaign team knows that his Mormon faith scared off Republican voters the last time he ran for president.

But they believe a lot has changed in the last four years.

For starters, Romney is now much better known. The former Massachusetts governor campaigned hard in the 2008 primaries – even addressing his Mormonism head-on in a major speech — and has stayed in the public eye since, popping up on late-night talk shows and on cable news channels.

Romney’s Mormonism, the thinking goes, is less exotic than it was four years ago because the candidate is more familiar.

Plus, unlike in 2008, there’s a Democrat in the White House for Republican voters to unite against. The Romney camp hopes the Obama factor will boost support for a battle-tested candidate who’s shown he can raise the hundreds of millions of dollars White House bids require, regardless of the candidate’s religious affiliation.

And unlike the 2008 Republican primaries, when George W. Bush was in the White House and debate over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan loomed large, next year’s elections are poised to hang on the economy. Not a bad time, maybe, for a guy with a Harvard MBA and a career spent turning around financially troubled companies and the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah.

“The country’s really in a tough situation — the economy’s in a bad place and so people suddenly think that a guy with Mitt Romney’s capacity and experience looks a lot more attractive than he did four years ago,” says Mark DeMoss, a senior adviser to Romney’s campaign, which launched Thursday.

“That makes his faith much less of an issue than it was four years ago,” says DeMoss, who is tasked with helping Romney woo evangelical voters, a huge chunk of the GOP base and a constituency that’s historically been wary of Mormonism.

Whether DeMoss is right may make the difference in whether Romney, the current Republican frontrunner based on polls and fundraising, can actually win the Republican nomination and, ultimately, the White House.

But Romney may not be the only Mormon running for president. Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman is seriously flirting with a presidential bid.

Huntsman, Obama’s former ambassador to China, recently took a five-day swing through New Hampshire, site of the first-in-the-nation Republican primary, and has hired staff in South Carolina, another key primary state.

The prospect of a Huntsman campaign means the nation could see an unprecedented test of whether the GOP — and, perhaps, the rest of the country — is ready for a Mormon president in an era when candidates’ religious beliefs have become weighty campaign issues.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormon Church is officially known, certainly seems eager for Mormonism to be less an issue in the presidential race than it was for Romney in 2008

“Recent media coverage seems to lean toward the conclusion that among many Americans, faith will be less of an issue in this election than it was in 2008,” church spokesman Michael Purdy said in a statement to CNN. “But it’s really for others to speculate on this.”

Public opinion polls suggest a lingering bias against Mormon candidates. A survey released Thursday by the Pew Research Center found that a quarter of American adults admit to being less likely to vote for a Mormon candidate for president. (that doesnt surprise me)


The survey found that resistance to Mormon candidates was even higher among two groups: liberal Democrats and evangelicals, who overwhelmingly vote Republican. One in three white evangelicals said they were less likely to support a Mormon candidate.

That creates a stiff headwind for Romney and Huntsman, given evangelicals’ primary power. In 2008, evangelicals accounted for 60 percent of Republican voters in Iowa, home to the first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses, and in South Carolina, whose primaries come hard on the heels of New Hampshire’s.

In 2008, Romney’s Mormonism “was a real factor in Iowa and South Carolina that predisposed many potential voters to never to consider Romney or hear his message,” said Gary Marx, who directed conservative outreach for Romney the last time he ran.

That year, Romney placed second in Iowa and fourth in South Carolina behind then-frontrunner Mike Huckabee – a Baptist preacher who won major evangelical support.

Though Mormons consider themselves to be Christians, many evangelicals consider the Latter-day Saints to be a cult. (and because of such nonsense, this is why he wont win)


Evangelicals object to the Mormon belief that the Book of Mormon is the revealed word of God and to such Mormon practices as proxy baptisms for the dead. Evangelicals and Mormons also compete for converts.

Many evangelical leaders have discouraged their followers from translating such differences into opposition to Mormon candidates. But that message isn’t always heeded.

“I don’t think it’s much of an issue among the leadership in evangelical circles,” Michael Farris, an influential evangelical activist, says of Mormon candidates. “But I don’t know if that is always true at the grassroots level.”

Richard Land, who directs public policy for the Southern Baptist Convention, the country’s largest evangelical denomination, says evangelicals could coalesce around Romney but that the conditions would have to be just right.

“If Southern Baptists have a choice between an evangelical candidate, a Catholic and a Mormon and all three appear to be equally conservative and equally likely to beat Barack Obama, they’ll vote for the evangelical,” says Land, who has informally advised Romney on how to deal with his faith on the campaign trail.


“If there’s no such evangelical [in the] race, they’ll vote for the Catholic,” he says, “But if there’s no other candidate who’s likely to beat Obama, they’ll vote for the Mormon.”

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, an evangelical, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Catholic, are running for the GOP nomination.

Beyond theological challenges, conservative activists like Land and Farris say Romney faces skepticism among religious conservatives because he once supported abortion rights and signed a healthcare law in Massachusetts that critics say represented a dramatic government overreach.

But those close to Romney argue that Huckabee’s decision not to enter the 2012 race creates an opportunity for Romney to pick up more evangelical support. Or, they say, it could wind up splitting evangelical voters among multiple primary candidates, making evangelicals a less potent force.

DeMoss, a Christian public relations executive who also helped Romney with evangelical outreach in 2008, says one of the victories from the last campaign was that no big-name evangelical came out against Romney over his Mormonism. This time, DeMoss is working to get some evangelical leaders to go a step further and publicly support Romney.

After Romney’s 2008 defeat, one nationally known evangelical leader privately told DeMoss that he’d voted for Romney in the primaries.

“I remember thinking, it would have been nice if somebody else knew that,” says DeMoss, who believes such revelations would have made more evangelicals comfortable supporting a Mormon candidate.

Huntsman’s entry into the presidential race could make Mormonism less of an issue if it has a mainstreaming effect. But the two candidates’ religious affiliations could play out quite differently.

Romney has long been active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), having occupied Mormon leadership positions like bishop (the rough equivalent of a lay pastor) and stake president (someone who oversees groups of Mormon congregations).

“I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it,” Romney said in a December 2007 speech in which he addressed his Mormonism. “My faith is the faith of my fathers — I will be true to them and to my beliefs.”

Huntsman, like Romney, spent two years abroad as a Mormon missionary but has kept some distance from the LDS church. As governor of Utah, he loosened liquor laws that had been inspired by Mormon orthodoxy and broke with his church in signing a law allowing civil unions for gay couples.

In a recent television interview, Huntsman affirmed his Mormon faith but added that Mormonism is “a very diverse and heterogeneous cross-section of people. ... I probably add to that diversity somewhat.”

A Huntsman adviser who often deals with the media declined to respond to requests for comment.

Matthew Bowman, an editor at a Mormon studies journal called Dialogue, says Huntsman hails from a slightly younger generation of Mormons who are less defensive about their Mormonism.

“Huntsman is a Mormon who thinks of his faith not as something that separates him from American culture or as something he has to defend or explain away, which is what Romney did,” says Bowman. “Romney is always hyperaware of his Mormonism.”

That means Huntsman may face fewer questions about his Mormonism should he run.

The LDS church, for its part, says its policy is to steer clear of electoral politics. Some church observers say the controversy the church generated by supporting California’s 2008 gay marriage ban, Proposition 8, exacerbated its political reticence. (most mormons dont support gay marriage)

At the same time, the church has capitalized on increased attention paid to Mormonism - provoked by everything from Romney’s 2008 campaign to the current hit Broadway musical, “Book of Mormon” - with a succession of public awareness campaigns.

The church website Mormon.org, for example, was recently revamped with an eye toward educating non-Mormons about the religion. The site features video profiles of Mormons from different walks of life.

“The message of these ads is that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints are your friends and neighbors,” says Purdy, the church spokesman. “We are professionals and tradespeople, artists and teachers and everything in between.”

Put another way, the message is that Mormons are normal, everyday Americans.

With the Republican primary race finally starting in earnest, the nation is about get a major glimpse into whether GOP voters agree.