{"id":197,"date":"2017-12-09T23:08:54","date_gmt":"2017-12-10T03:08:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/themormonpolitico\/?p=197"},"modified":"2017-12-09T23:08:54","modified_gmt":"2017-12-10T03:08:54","slug":"remind-mormons-hang-religious-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/themormonpolitico\/2017\/12\/remind-mormons-hang-religious-right\/","title":{"rendered":"Remind me why Mormons hang out with the Religious Right?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

A darling of the Religious Right, Mike Huckabee trafficked in anti-Mormon dog whistles against Mitt Romney. Obtained through Creative Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Regardless of how hard Mormons<\/a> try to gain acceptance from conservative Christians by playing up their culture war bona fides, they\u2019ll never be admitted to the country club.<\/em><\/h2>\n* ** There are dog whistles and then there are dog foghorns. On December 5th, former White House Chief Strategist (and alleged wife-beater, avowed Leninist, and anti-Semite) Steve Bannon let sound one of the latter before a crowd of\u00a0Republicans in Alabama. In response to Mitt Romney\u2019s criticisms of credibly accused child molester Roy Moore, Bannon accused the former Massachusetts governor of \u201chid[ing] behind [his] religion\u201d by serving a Mormon mission in France while America was fighting in Vietnam. In Alabama\u2019s overwhelmingly evangelical electorate, the strategy behind his remarks was clear: discredit Romney\u2019s condemnation of Moore by playing up many conservative Christians\u2019 strong antipathy for Mormons.<\/p>\n ** I grew up in the Deep South, and I have firsthand experience with the disdain many conservative evangelicals express toward Mormons. I still remember my 4th grade teacher making snide comments about my religion, and I recall when other prominent churches in my hometown boycotted a community holiday celebration because my Mormon congregation\u2019s choir was participating. I also carry the memories of my classmates who told me that their pastors had condemned my faith as a \u201ccult.\u201d<\/p>\n ** This brings me to my question: why do so many of my fellow Latter-Day Saints insist upon identifying with the Religious Right, a political demographic that has time and time again shown that it views us with contempt? Yes, many conservative Mormons hold views similar to conservative evangelicals on issues like abortion and marriage equality, but are those hot-button topics really worth wedding ourselves to a movement that clearly has no qualms about throwing us under the bus when it\u2019s convenient?<\/p>\n ** *Regardless of how hard Mormons try to gain acceptance among conservative Christians by playing up their culture war bona fides, they\u2019ll never be admitted to the country club.\u00a0This was vividly demonstrated to me when I worked for the ACLU of Georgia during law school. While I was reviewing potential litigation for our office to sign on to, I came across a complaint from a Mormon parent in the Atlanta suburbs. Her child had done everything \u201cright\u201d to prove her devotion to the Religious Right \u2013 she was enrolled in an evangelical private school, participated wholeheartedly in school activities, and even sang in the school\u2019s religiously themed choir. But when she auditioned for, and won, a solo part in a school production, she was subsequently booted from the\u00a0role because school administrators were concerned about having a \u201cnon-Christian\u201d so prominently featured.<\/p>\n The fact is, rather than having the Religious Right promote their interests, Mormons are more likely to be victims of the Religious Right\u2019s intolerant ire. Take one of the \u201cMoral Majority\u2019s\u201d favorite hobby horses: school prayer. One of the foundational Supreme Court cases limiting schools\u2019 ability to have government-sponsored prayer resulted from Mormon and Catholic parents suing a Texas school district<\/a> whose personnel saw nothing wrong with students and administrators railing against non-evangelicals in hateful diatribes dressed up as appeals to deity. In the run-up to and during that litigation, Mormon students and their families were subject to threats and harassment<\/a>, a Jewish student was taunted with anti-Semitic slurs, and Catholic parents were condemned in public school board meetings for \u201cnot being Christians.\u201d After years of winding through the appellate process, when the case ultimately reached the Supreme Court, Jay Sekulow (a Pat Robertson acolyte, golden boy of the Religious Right, and attorney for Donald Trump in the current investigation of his potential collusion with Russia) cynically argued for the Santa Fe Independent School District that the schools, rather than discriminating against members of minority faiths, were doing nothing of the sort.<\/p>\n No joke.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t get me wrong \u2013 I\u2019m not saying there aren\u2019t many on the secular left who express enmity for Mormons. However, at least for them, their ire is typically rooted in opposition to political positions espoused by Church members (like Mormons\u2019 support for Proposition 8), rather than a contempt for Mormons simply for their religious identity. And even though some on the left may disagree with Mormons\u2019 politics, they typically stand up for us when they sense religiously motivated bigotry. Look at how Obama refused to make an issue out of Romney\u2019s faith in 2012 \u2013 and how conservative Christian extraordinaire Mike Huckabee didn\u2019t hesitate to do so in 2007.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll take someone who dislikes me over my politics rather than my religion any day of the week.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Regardless of how hard Mormons try to gain acceptance from conservative Christians by playing up their culture war bona fides, they\u2019ll never be admitted to the country club. There are dog whistles and then there are dog foghorns. On December 5th, former White House Chief Strategist (and alleged wife-beater, avowed Leninist, and anti-Semite) Steve Bannon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2542,"featured_media":198,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,78,6],"tags":[172,77,173,165,174,68],"class_list":["post-197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mormon","category-politics","category-romney","category-the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints","tag-mike-huckabee","tag-mitt-romney","tag-religious-right","tag-roy-moore","tag-school-prayer","tag-steve-bannon"],"yoast_head":"\nRemind me why Mormons hang out with the Religious Right?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Regardless of how hard Mormons try, they'll never be admitted to conservative Christians' country club.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta 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