A national spotlight on LDS beliefs
By Lisa Riley Roche
Deseret Morning News
Friday, May 11, 2007
deseretnews.com
Romney: He is feature of Time and '60 Minutes'
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney — and his membership in the LDS Church — are the topics of a Time magazine cover story and a new "60 Minutes" interview.
The publicity comes as the 10 GOP candidates for the White House, including Romney and his fellow front-runners, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Arizona's Sen. John McCain, prepare for their second debate next week.
While Romney typically trails in the polls behind Giuliani and McCain, he appears to be attracting the most attention in advance of the debate that will be broadcast live Tuesday evening on the Fox News Channel from the University of South Carolina.
A close-up, black-and-white photograph of Romney dominates the May 21 Time cover that hits newsstands today and asks, "Sure, He Looks Like a President. But What Does Mitt Romney Really Believe?" The cover also refers to a second story, "The Debate Over His Mormon Faith."
On Sunday, Romney will appear on the CBS news program "60 Minutes," talking with interviewer Mike Wallace about several issues related to his religion, including polygamy and premarital sex, as well as the war in Iraq.
Both of the reports focus attention on Romney's membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Time asks, "Is it sheer bigotry to say you won't vote for someone because he's a Jew? A Muslim? What about a Mormon?"
In the Time profile, Romney said, "My faith has made me a better person than I would have been." But most of the lengthy cover story deals with his shifting political beliefs as he attempts to appeal to conservative voters.
Romney has been characterized by critics as a "flip-flopper" for campaigning in Massachusetts, where he served as governor, as pro-choice on abortion before adopting a pro-life position after he was elected.
The article questions whether Romney can "convince voters there is indeed a core somewhere in the middle of all those contortions," saying that factor "could determine whether he's in the race for the long haul or just an early, forgettable flash."
The accompanying piece on religion, however, zeros in on Mormonism and whether it's fair to vote against political candidates because of their private beliefs.
Romney, the magazine states, "can hardly suggest to the devout voters of the GOP base that religious views don't matter," and he must decide how much to tell them about a church that is to many, "newer and less familiar, its rituals more private."
But the more people learn, "the greater Romney's problem may become," according to the article, which offers readers a brief history of the LDS Church. The article also mentions that when Romney and his wife Ann, a convert, were married in the Salt Lake Temple, her non-Mormon family could not attend.
Romney is quoted as saying, "There are caricatures that pick some obscure aspect of your faith that you never even think about and assume that it was the central element of the church." He notes that not everything LDS leaders have said is church doctrine.
The head of the Southern Baptist Convention's public-policy arm, Richard Land, said Romney "has to close the deal. Only Romney can make voters comfortable with his Mormonism. Others cannot do it for him."
There is no reference in the story to the latest controversy about Romney and Mormonism, involving a comment made by the Rev. Al Sharpton during a debate on religion Monday, in which Sharpton suggested that Mormons don't believe in God.
It is not clear whether the "60 Minutes" interview will include the issue raised when Sharpton said, "As for the one Mormon running for office, those that really believe in God will defeat him anyway, so don't worry about that, that's a temporary situation."
According to details of the interview released by the network Thursday, Romney acknowledged that voters may have a problem with the LDS Church's past practice of polygamy and said he does, too. The church prohibited plural marriage in 1890.
"That's part of the history of the church's past that I understand is troubling to people," Romney reportedly said in the segment. "I have a great-great-grandfather. They were trying to build a generation out there in the desert, and so he took additional wives, as he was told to do. And I must admit, I can't imagine anything more awful than polygamy."
He also talked about his religious beliefs, saying, "What's at the heart of my faith is a belief that there is a creator, that we're all children of the same God, and that fundamentally, the relationship you have with your spouse is important and eternal."
Romney said marriage "isn't just some temporary convenience here on Earth, but we're people that are designed to live together as male and female, and we're going to have families." He quoted the Bible, saying, "Children are an inheritance of the Lord and happy is he who has or hath his quiver full of them."
Wallace asked at one point if Romney and his wife, Ann, broke what is described as the strict church rule against premarital sex. "No, I'm sorry, we do not get into those things," Romney said. "The answer is no," he added before ending the line of questioning.
On the war in Iraq, Romney said the Bush administration "made a number of errors. I don't think we were adequately prepared for what occurred. I don't think we did enough planning. I don't think we considered the various downsides and risks."
E-mail: lisa@desnews.com
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