Mitt Romney's speech

[fabrisse]

This is my first reaction to reports about Mr. Romney's Mormonism for the Christian Right speech. I have not read a full transcript, nor have I heard the speech.

Having disclaimed that, this quote is disturbing. Perhaps context will make it less so, but it's three words. How much parsing can there be?

Freedom requires religion?!?

The hell?

When I was a believer, I never thought atheists or agnostics had fewer freedoms or rights to freedom.

As a non-believer (or uncertain of belief-er), I fear my freedom being linked to any idea of God.

Religion is personal. That was the point of my ancestors coming here.

Freedom is social. There's no point in guaranteeing it, if the guarantee doesn't apply to all.

Comments

[gileswench.livejournal.com]

To paraphrase another belief I don't actually hold: they can force a Bible on me when they place it in my cold, dead hands.

Over the years I have explored religion. I have read significant swathes of the Bible and a few other religious texts for various belief systems. I have talked to members of various faiths about their faith. And in the end, I find myself an entirely respectful non-believer. I understand a lot of what a lot of different people believe and I make no attempt whatsoever to sway them from their religious tenents. I do not deliberately offend against people's beliefs, and if I find I have inadvertantly done so, I apologize sincerely. If I am in a situation that includes a religious act (weddings, funerals, a dinner where someone chooses to say Grace aloud), I accept that this is what they believe and behave myself.

All I ask is that others be as respectful of my failure to believe as I am of their choice to believe.

If we do not have freedom of choice when it comes to our most personal beliefs, what freedom can we possibly have?

And in conclusion: fuck you, Mitt Romney. I do not need a god to be a moral person. I do not need a god to be politically free. I certainly do not need you to lead my country.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

*applause*

Miss you, Twistie.

Now Go -- Beta. *G*

[oh-mcgee.livejournal.com]

I read the rest of the context and I still don't get it.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

I've read it now, too, and I'm leaving my post alone because the puzzlement is still there.

His invocation of the Founding Fathers was intriguing. But I read Sam Adams statement as a validation of Faith rather than a validation of religion.

I hope I'm missing something.

[oh-mcgee.livejournal.com]

I hope I'm missing something.

I always feel that way regarding religion.

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

Do you suppose he meant that universal freedom requires unrestricted freedom
of religion among the other choices (assembly, press, the usual)? That would make more sense, not that he necessarily was trying to make sense as much as
bring Christian evangelicals over to his side.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

I would hope that was the intent. But in finally reading the whole thing, I still don't get that sense.

I'd love to get your take.

[wadjet-theperv.livejournal.com]

ITA with everything you say. Fundamentalist belief of any kind worries me. My kids are being brought up Reform Jewish and I let them go to the youth club at the local church because their friends go. It's a youth club, that's all. However, even though the organisers make a big deal of me letting them go, it doesn't stop them telling the kids not to associate with non Christians because it'll make you evil.

WTF???

Why can't we all live together and have a bit of tolerance. Do they not see the correlation between the way they think and the way the people think who are trying to wipe them off the face of the earth?

When they talk about religion, unfortunately I don't think they're talking about Paganism, or Islam :o(

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

The whole speech is now up at Salon. You're right about Paganism, but here's the inclusiveness part of his speech.

"I believe that every faith I have encountered draws its adherents closer to God. And in every faith I have come to know, there are features I wish were in my own: I love the profound ceremony of the Catholic Mass, the approachability of God in the prayers of the Evangelicals, the tenderness of spirit among the Pentecostals, the confident independence of the Lutherans, the ancient traditions of the Jews, unchanged through the ages, and the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims. As I travel across the country and see our towns and cities, I am always moved by the many houses of worship with their steeples, all pointing to heaven, reminding us of the source of life's blessings."

Now that's all well and good, but it's definitely exclusionary of those without belief in a higher power. Or whose belief system incorporates other features such as Buddhism.

I've had more than a few disagreements with Mr. Romney's politics in the past. As governor of Massachusetts he wanted to invoke the old anti-miscegnation laws to prevent gay marriage even after the State Supreme Court had made its ruling, for instance. So, my vote was never his to lose.

[wadjet-theperv.livejournal.com]

Sometimes though, I wonder if people like him *say* these things as a means to their own ends. My neighbours growing up became Mormon and their heartfelt believe in exclusionism ran as far as my neighbours having to baptise their deceased family into the Mormon faith because if they didn't, they'd never meet in heaven (because you had to become Mormon to get there). This wasn't being mean, it was a real heartfelt belief that there was only one way to salvation.

The spiritual attachment fundamentalists have to Israel stems from the need of the Jewish people to all be there, so that they can be converted to the one true faith, and only when that happens will the Second Coming happen.

I may have got that all wrong, but that was my understanding.

That's why even though this *sounds* inclusive, there's no way it can be, even of the other monotheistic faiths let alone any others (and I'm counting lack of religious faith as a faith here). If it was, it would be denying one of the main principles of his own.

[undauntra.livejournal.com]

IIRC, Mormons actually believe in three heavens - and Mormons go to a different heaven than non-Mormons. So it's not exactly an "only one way to salvation" as "only one way to the same salvation that we're going to." Basically, there's one heaven for bad people that is just like earth except with any war or crime or death or any of that set of bad stuff. There's one heaven for good non-Mormons which is the most wonderful place you can imagine. And there's the special heaven for Mormons, which is so good that you can't imagine it. There's also a Hell, but very very few people go to Hell in Mormon theology - basically, you have to have perfect knowledge of what God is and reject him anyway, and mortals aren't capable of having perfect knowledge of God unless there's a miraculous revelation involved.

The Mormon heaven is also supposed to be advanced training for the next stage in spiritual development, which is why the Mormons would rather go there than settle for just an amazingly nice heaven with their non-Mormon buddies. It'd be like staying a perpetual teenager - possibly comforting, but underachieving.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I knew about the special heaven for good Mormons, but I wasn't aware of their view of hell.

The middle heaven reminds me of my Jehovah's Witness ladies explaining that very few people are fit for the perfection of heaven, so God will give us Paradise here on earth. It was agreed that she'd grow all the vegetables she wanted and I'd cook them. *G*

And you're right, the Republican religious arbiters are probably more suspicious of Mormonism lacking Jesus as the "one way to salvation."

[wadjet-theperv.livejournal.com]

Blimey. That sounds complicated! Thanks for clearing it up. Religions fascinate me. Their differences and their similarities. You really do learn something new every day :)

[thorbol.livejournal.com]

One thing I respected about Mitt Romney was that he left the governor's office before running for president. He is in that matter a role model whom most politicians would gain at least a modicum of credibility by following.

Second, as with you, my vote was never his to lose, and for at least some of the same reasons.

Third, maybe I'm missing something, but it seems disgraceful to me that he was pressured to make a speech on his religion at all. Yes, I know that if your religion means much to you, it is likely to have some sort of influence on what you do in office, even if you set boundaries beyond which you won't let that influence go, as John F. Kennedy claimed to do. Still, it's the policies and public actions that I care about, not whether they arose from Mormonism, Islam, atheism, or the worship of dog hair.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Do you know someone who worships dog hair? Because Bessie may be a saint in that religion.

I think the man is honorable, and leaving the governor's mansion before starting his campaign is a mark of that.

I too am appalled that the Republican Party seems to require a religious litmus test. I'm sorry he felt he had to speak on the subject, but I understand why, within his party, it was necessary.

[thorbol.livejournal.com]

Well, if science somehow proves that we need religion in our lives to be whole, as some folks assert, then maybe I'll start the dog hair worship cult. It is kind of hard to worship something you have to sweep or vacuum up, but quite easy to worship something that's soft to the touch and grows on a most lovable animal.

I bet that I, too, would be called on--nearly coerced--to make a speech about religion if I were running for a major office. Like Romney's, my "faith," which is mostly the absence of faith, is a target for demagoguery, a morsel for the pseudoreligious mouthpieces. I'd hope that my speech would help promote our better values, but I'm sure that the demagogues would choke loudly on the morsel.