Mitt Romney’s Mormonism Becomes Focus at Values Voter Summit
After criticism from Rick Perry supporter Robert Jeffress, Romney on the defensive.
| Posted Saturday, Oct. 8, 2011, at 2:34 PM ET
It was only a matter of time, right?
At this weekend’s Values Voters Summit, the big issue seems to be assumed frontrunner Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith — something that has plagued the former Massachusetts governor in the past but has yet to come front-and-center in the campaign for president in 2012.
On Friday, Dr. Robert Jeffress endorsed Rick Perry, saying that he preferred having a “competent Christian” like Perry over a “competent non-Christian” like Romney, and called the Mormon faith a cult.
Saturday, Romney had to play defense in a speech at the annual gathering of social conservatives, according to the Wall Street Journal:
“We should remember that decency and civility are values, too,” Mr. Romney told hundreds of conservatives. “One of the speakers who will follow me today has crossed that line. Poisonous language does not advance our cause. It has never softened a single heart nor changed a single mind.”
The speaker who followed Romney, was of course speaking of American Family Association representative Bryan Fischer, who among other things, has said the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints may not deserve First Amendment rights, and suggested that homosexuals were to blame for the Holocaust. On Saturday, Fischer also suggested that evolution was a “bankrupt theory,” and that homosexuality should be treated as a “threat to public health,” according to Politico.
President Obama was successful in fiercely fighting off criticisms from the right about his Christian faith, namely suggestions that he was not actually an observant Christian and that his former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright was an extremist.
Romney may be taking a cue from that example, but while his Mormonism doesn’t hurt him seriously among GOP voters, polling for the general election shows more potential pitfalls. Gallup polling in June suggested as many as 22 percent of likely voters would not support a Mormon candidate — a number that has stayed strong since the 1970s, while negative views of Catholics, Jews, African-Americans and women who are running for office have all declined significantly over the same time period.
