This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2006, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
More than a year ago, Mitt Romney sought the advice of LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley about a run for the presidency. At the meeting, as reported in a Mormon-focused magazine, Hinckley said the decision was Romney's to make, not the church's. But if Romney decided to go for it, Hinckley wasn't worried. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would survive the inevitable scrutiny.
That was then.
Since that reported meeting, photos of sacred temple garments, caricatures of Mormon worship and questions about the church's former racial policies have circulated widely on the Internet. Such unwanted and unflattering attention will only multiply starting Jan. 8, when Romney is expected to announce his 2008 aspirations. In the coming months, Hinckley's optimism will be put to the test.
Evangelical critics have dismissed the church as a cult, and a Boston Globe report detailed LDS efforts in support of Romney, challenging the church's nonprofit status. Even Jay Leno and Jon Stewart have gotten their digs in.
The church and its loyal members will see their faith publicly maligned to a degree not seen since 1906, when minute details of Utah Sen. Reed Smoot's exotic beliefs were exploited in the penny press and debated by Congress. Mormonism will be the topic of uncomfortable office chatter, some of it, no doubt, ill-informed.
On the other hand, Mormons will get an unparalleled opportunity to show a national audience that they are more than people whose ancestors practiced polygamy. "More people will acquire an understanding of Mormonism," says Ron Scott, a Boston journalist who described the Hinckley/Romney meeting in a November 2005 issue of Sunstone magazine. "Unfortunately, many may conclude that Mormonism is as narrow and reactionary as some of the so-called Christian fundamentalist sects."
Mormons are a confident bunch, though. In dozens of interviews and comments in the "bloggernacle," or group of LDS Web logs, nearly every person said ultimately the publicity will only help the church they love.
"If people shine light on our religion, they will find some strange things, they will find some unsavory things, and they will find some wonderful things. I am confident in the power of the latter," says Sunstone editor Dan Wotherspoon. "Bring it on."
A dry run
The "Mormon question" was raised during Orrin Hatch's aborted presidential bid in 2000 and also has been used by opponents during Oklahoma Congressman Ernest Istook's various campaigns. Romney got a taste of it in his 1994 attempt to unseat Edward Kennedy in the Senate.
Despite his brother's famous speech saying that a person's religion should be off-limits, Kennedy "played the Mormon card so relentlessly and cynically that even the leader of Boston Catholics, Cardinal Bernard Law, indignantly wrote that the lessons John Kennedy taught the country about a man's religion have 'been lost on President Kennedy's youngest brother, but salvaged by Mister Romney,' '' Scott wrote in his Sunstone piece.
Law's stirring protest was of "little lasting consequence," he wrote, as Romney was forced "to react almost daily to potshots that his religion was racist, then sexist, then backward, then clannish with designs on ruling the U.S. if not the world."
The experience may have toughened Romney, but whether it helped the LDS Church is unclear. One thing is certain: Such publicity has made the church more proactive.
In September, LDS spokesman Michael Otterson told members of the Religion Newswriters Association the church was already crafting a strategy to respond to the overwhelming number of inquiries associated with a potential Romney run. Later this fall, Otterson made the rounds among Washington's political writers to talk about Mormonism.
"We don't discuss politics or candidates. We don't comment on platforms and positions. We don't try to make judgments on whether one politician or another is consistent or inconsistent with the [LDS] Church's position," Otterson said this week. "We don't comment on speeches. We emphasize partisan neutrality, including the church's rules on not endorsing candidates and not using buildings or mailing lists for party political purposes."
But the church also has a history of being defensive, almost nit-picky, in response to what it views as attacks.
Starting with the 2002 Winter Olympics, the public affairs department has posted "corrections" to what it sees as misrepresentations of the church in various news reports. It wrote a lengthy rebuttal of Jon Krakauer's book, Under the Banner of Heaven, before the book came out. It also has listed various "position statements" on its Web site, including one on same-sex attraction, to explain the church's position on many social issues.
Asked if the church plans to respond to every misstatement, Otterson sidestepped the question.
"As long as questions are specifically about the church and not about politics or politicians," Otterson says, "we'll respond as thoughtfully and thoroughly as we can.
Burnishing
the image
In the past dozen years or so, LDS officials have worked overtime to send the message that Mormons are Christians and they don't worship founder Joseph Smith. They enlarged the words "Jesus Christ" on the church's logo and increased the number of times Christ is mentioned in speeches and magazine articles.
Hinckley has also downplayed the more unusual elements of the faith. He has dismissed the pre-1978 ban on blacks becoming priests and the practice of polygamy, which ended officially in 1890, as "in the past." He has written inspirational books without using any Mormon language. He welcomed the world to Utah for the 2002 Winter Olympics.
All of these efforts may help Romney, who could hardly look more All-American. His answer to questions about underwear could be an ad he once ran that showed him bare-chested on a beach.
"If you listen to Mitt and [President Hinckley] long enough," says Scott, "you might conclude that Mormons are really just Episcopalians who wear funny underwear."
But some members are wary that in an effort to explain the LDS faith to a critical audience, officials may end up watering it down.
"Downplaying temple garments? What else do we want to demystify and de-weird for the sake of gains in popular opinion?" asks Steve Evans, a Seattle attorney who helps run the Mormon blog bycommonconsent.com. "I'm all in favor of clarifying misconceptions, but eventually I am worried that we lose something vital."
The church's
mission
Many Americans fear that Romney will just serve the LDS Church's interests, one of which is enlisting new members. Since its founding in 1830, the LDS Church has sent missionaries across the globe seeking converts. Many people's only contact with Mormonism comes in the form of two young men in dark suits, white shirts and black name tags knocking on their doors. Not many get invited into American homes.
Some will try to cash in on Romney's name recognition to make their pitch for the faith, Scott says. "The missionaries will talk. That's a given."
As a missionary in New England, Scott talked about Romney's father, George Romney, who briefly ran for president in the 1960s.
"I was quite proud to talk about his dad," he says. "If I was a missionary now, I'd talk about Mitt. It will not hurt the church's tax status unless some silly mission president instructs his charges to talk up Mitt's candidacy."
That's the problem. Some overeager members will take it on themselves to use all their resources for Mitt. When he ran in 1994, some members of his Belmont, Mass., Mormon congregation wanted all the youths to put up lawn signs. (They didn't.)
If Mormon stake presidents or bishops direct their groups to get out the vote for Mitt or the GOP specifically, IRS sanctions could follow.
Meanwhile, people may join the LDS Church or be attracted to it because of the charisma of Romney and his family.
"Is this good or bad?" asks Scott, who is writing a book about Romney's campaign, tentatively titled Catching Mitt: Slow Dancing the Christian Right.
"I suppose it comes down to what they, the converts, make of it," he says. "People attracted to the church because of a presidential candidate probably have more 'lasting' potential than ones drawn in by rock 'n' roll stars or youth baseball teams, except they may not be as good at swooning or fielding grounders."
Among the
faithful
Romney will not have to do much to win the votes of most Mormons. According to a 2001 American Religious Identification Survey of City University of New York, 55 percent of Latter-day Saints are Republican, 14 percent Democrat and 26 percent independent.
Utah, of course, is among the reddest states in the country.
Some Mormon Democrats, like Kem Gardner, may vote for Romney anyway because he's a friend or member of their tribe. But what about those who don't? Will they be criticized by other Mormons, as Sen. Harry Reid was for not voting for the Marriage Amendment as LDS officials had urged? Will they feel pressured to put up lawn signs for Romney or join get-out-the-vote efforts?
Bishops and stake presidents are going to have to be especially vigilant to make sure this doesn't happen, Scott says. "Trouble is, some of them are the worst offenders."
"I'm already wishing that Mitt Romney just wouldn't run for the presidency," wrote Massachusetts attorney Kelly McGee on her personal blog last month. "I wouldn't vote for him anyway. . . . And it's going to make it very uncomfortable for the rest of us."
Whether McGee likes it or not, it looks like Romney will run and his church will continue to be part of the conversation, just as it has been for every Mormon politician outside of Utah.
When Smoot was elected, the U.S. Congress vetted every aspect of his religion, calling on friend and foe alike to testify.
In the end, everyone discovered that "Reed Smoot was very much like everybody else - notwithstanding this strange religion he observed," says Kathleen Flake, a Vanderbilt professor of religious history who wrote a book about Smoot. "As they got to know him, the American public realized they had more in common than not."
She expects the same thing to happen with Romney.
"For all the difficulties that are assumed, the actual experience with Mormons in public office is that they are of their time and place," she says. "They have served the public well."