On Thursday night, former Governor Mitt Romney will accept the nomination for Republican presidential candidate. He will [continue to] make history as the “Mormon Candidate for President.”
All signs indicate that on that momentous night he will address his-my-your-our religion. While the rest of the country listens with a curious, possibly jaded ear, Mormons will listen with a different set of ears. We will listen to his description to learn how we will be perceived, how we will be described, and how not only Mitt Romney, but we will also be judged. Some of us will jump up and down, thrilled with whatever he chooses to say. Others will be slightly irritated that he did not use the national podium to preach the Gospel. And others will shake their heads that he had to say anything about religion at all.
But one thing is for sure- on Friday morning we will wake up to dozens of fresh new articles about our religion in the media.
I remember as a child any time I heard mention of Mormons, or sometimes even just Utah, on the radio or television I was astonished and excited. People had heard of us! People knew we existed! (I grew up in Virginia where, at the time, Mormons were far and few between.) Now it seems I am impressed if I can go a whole day without seeing a headline about Mitt and “his” religion.
According to the Washington Post, “White evangelical Protestant voters nearly unanimously (93 percent) agree that it’s important for a presidential candidate to have strong religious beliefs, while almost 8-in-10 (78 percent) Republican voters and two-thirds (67 percent) of voters overall hold the same belief. For some of these voters, however, mere religiosity is not enough: over one-third (39 percent) of white evangelical Protestant voters and nearly 1-in-5 (19 percent) voters overall who say that it’s important for a presidential candidate to have strong religious beliefs also say they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who had strong beliefs if those beliefs were very different from their own. Worryingly for Romney, two-thirds (68 percent) of white evangelical Protestants say that Romney’s Mormon faith is different from their own.”
Of course, we already knew that. Politically active conservatives want everyone to be religious- just as long as it is an approved, similar religion. And Mormons may have come a long way, but they are not yet completely approved by the mainstream religions.
Politicos are already discussing how Romney might find ways to discuss “his” religion without invoking words familiar to the Mormon vernacular. They love the idea of him talking circles around his beliefs without addressing them head on.
Personally, I am grateful for one simple thing. All politics aside, I am grateful that (so far) Mitt Romney and his family have done nothing to reflect poorly on my-your-our-his religion. I do not know the man personally. But he has earned my trust so that when he does speak about our shared faith I know he will not say something I have to apologize for or excuse in the morning. I believe he will represent our faith well, even if he does not necessarily represent our exact individual political views. It is precisely for this reason that he is not the “Mormon Candidate for President.” He may not represent each of our political views. But so far, he has done an excellent job of representing my-his-your-our religion.
And for that, I thank him.
Erin Ann McBride’s newest novel, “You Heard It Here First” is available on Nook and Kindle for 99 cents for a limited time! (Paperbacks will be available soon.)