Willard Milton Liar, Liar, Magic UnderPants on Fire! -T
Hi Team! *? 2 ALL: ROMNEY DENIES FAMILY CAME FROM MEXICAN POLYGAMIST COMMUNE - (above): Joseph Smith and wives Romney's father, the late Michigan governor George Romney, was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, in 1907 to American citizens living in a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints colony. The Romney family had left the U.S. to avoid being prosecuted for polygamy after laws against the practice were enforced, and returned to the U.S. after the Mexican Revolution broke out. Some family members stayed in Mexico and Mitt Romney has about 40 relatives still living south of the border. - Huffington Post Toby Harnden reports: A governor who backed Barack Obama in 2008 and was given a prominent speaking role at the Democratic National Convention has said that Mitt Romney could struggle in the November election because women 'are not great fans of polygamy'. Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana, who was viewed as a possible vice-presidential running mate for Obama four years ago, raised Romney's Mormon faith by repeatedly stating that his father was 'born into a polygamy commune in Mexico'. (above): Schweitzer, Romney The comments were quickly disavowed by an Obama spokeswoman but have raised concerns among Republicans that the Obama campaign and its allies will use Romney's Mormon faith as a means of attacking his character. ...(Schweitzer) said, '86 per cent [of women are] not great fans of polygamy'. He added: 'I am not alleging by any stretch that Romney is a polygamist and approves of [the] polygamy lifestyle, but his father was born into [a] polygamy commune in Mexico'". Romney denies family came from Mexican polygamist commune - what are your comments? Greg Dempsey http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SECULARHUMANIST/ Voice of the People ===== 'Romney's father was born into a polygamy commune in Mexico': Montana's Democrat governor launches personal attack on Obama's election rival By Toby Harnden Daily Mail PUBLISHED: 15:22 EST, 20 April 2012 | UPDATED: 16:47 EST, 20 April 2012 ...During his 2008 speech at the Democratic convention in Denver, Schweitzer trumpeted his Cathoilc faith, saying: 'Like Senator Obama, my family has roots in the Great Plains. 'My grandparents were immigrants who came to Montana with nothing more than the clothes on their back, high hopes and faith in God.' Romney's father George W. Romney, who went on to become head of the American Motor Company and governor of Michigan, was born in 1907 in a settlement in Mexico that had been founded in the 1880s by Mormons fleeing American anti-polygamy laws. The last polygamist in Romney's direct ancestry was his great-grandfather Miles Park Romney, who had three wives. Romney's paternal grandfather Gaskell was monogamous and the Mormon Church outlawed polygamy in 1890. Five years ago, Romney, who has been married to his wife Ann for 42 years, said: 'I have a great-great-grandfather. They were trying to build a generation out there in the desert and so he took additional as he was told to do. And I must admit, I can't imagine anything more awful than polygamy.' Ann, whose father was a Welsh atheist, converted to Mormonism before she married Mitt. A senior Romney adviser said he expected Democrats to use the presumptive Republican nominee's faith against him. 'They'll take advantage of whatever they can. 'Even if they never have to use the word Mormon, if there's a chance it gives people a little bit of a doubt or erodes part of the Republican base, they'll be happy to take it. But I don't think they'll be caught with their hands in the cookie jar talking about Mormonism.' Already, there are indications that the Obama campaign is prepared to go after Romney's religion in subtle ways. His advisers declared Mormonism 'off limits' after they were panned for portraying Romney as 'weird'. But in recent days the word 'secretive' has been used about him repeatedly - a charge often laid at the door of the Mormon Church. Richard Land, head of public policy for the Southern Baptist Convention and a prominent evangelical figure who has met Romney privately said: 'As far as I'm concerned, Mormonism isn't a Christian faith. It's a different religion. But I and most evangelicals wouldn't have a problem voting for a Mormon against Barack Obama.' He said that he believed personal faith should not be part of the election and doubted the Obama campaign would 'comment on Romney's religion frontally' but expected Obama's media allies to do so eagerly. 'They're going to try to highlight all the more the exotic beliefs of Mormons and hope to scare off enough independents to help Romney win.' Predicting 'the ugliest campaign in my lifetime, and I was born in 1946', he said the press would attempt to get swing voters to ask themselves: 'He believes in that? Wow, do I really want a president who believes something like that?' In the US media, jibes about Mormon polygamy and 'magic underwear' (observant Mormons like Romney wear what are known as temple undergarments beneath their cloths) are commonplace and acceptable whereas that mocking Jews or Muslims is considered beyond the pale. Romney is a former Mormon bishop who hails from one of the most prominent families in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Mormons believes that early Christian leaders fell away from God's truth and that it took the discovery of the Book of Mormon by Joseph Smith, the self-proclaimed prophet who founded the church, to 'restore' true Christianity. Smith is said to have discovered the sacred text in 1823. It had been engraved on golden plates buried in a hill near his home in New York that he had found after being guided there by an angle called Moroni. Mormons do not smoke tobacco, swear or drink coffee, tea or alcohol. They conduct baptisms of the dead, usually of their ancestors but also, most controversially, Holocaust victims (a practice the church now outlaws). They believe that Jesus appeared to the Americas after the resurrection and that there are three heavens. Blacks were not allowed to be ordained into the Mormon Church until 1978. Romney and each of his five sons served for two years as Mormon missionaries. In Romney's case, he was sent to France in the late 1960s. Romney later joked: 'It's quite an experience to go to Bordeaux and say, 'Give up your wine! I've got a great religion for you!'' A number of the tenets of Mormonism are regarded as bizarre by many Americans and one of the biggest challenges Romney faced in the primaries was that many evangelicals regarded Mormons as members of a non-Christian cult. Romney lost primaries in South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana - the bible belt of the Deep South - though all these states are virtually certain to back him in the general election. Aware of the widespread suspicion of his religion, Romney has shied away from talking about it. He gave a speech in College Station, Texas in December 2007, billed as the equivalent to John F. Kennedy's 1960 address to allay fear about his Catholicism, in which he insisted that 'no authorities of my church' would 'ever exert influence on presidential decisions'. But even then he uttered the word Mormon only once. During the Republican primary campaign, his advisers avoided almost any mention of his faith. In January, a senior campaign official said that he believed there was an anti-Mormon smear campaign afoot in South Carolina but he wanted no public mention of it for fear of aggravating the issue. The downside of this approach was that Romney's deep faith, the observant life he has led and the family he has built are central to understanding him. By barely referring to Mormonism - his core - it was easy to believe he had no core. Alex Castellanos, a veteran Republican strategist who was a top adviser to Romney in 2008, said that Romney's faith could be turned into an advantage. 'He's over the tough part on the Mormon issue. He cleared that hurdle in the primaries.' Talking about his faith 'helps people to understand that there's a real core to Mitt Romney, that he believes there's a right and there's a wrong and he's lived his life the right way'. He added: 'The real window into Mitt Romney's heart is Ann Romney. The window into his soul may be his faith. Seeing who he is as a human being tells you how he's lived his life.' The current Romney adviser agreed, saying the campaign could to 'take this perceived weakness and turn it into a strength' by emphasising the tens of millions of dollars he has donated to his church (all Mormons are required to tithe 10 percent of their income) and his pastoral care of church members. 'We don't need to talk about Mormonism, we don't need to do a faith speech. But we can talk about it in terms of who you are, about family, about good works.' Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2132883/Democrats-begin-attacks-Romneys-Mormon-faith-claims-women-great-fans-polygamy.html#ixzz1seOS2GOC -- Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time. Have a great day, Tommy -- Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time. 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