The Mormonism "Cult"

The Values Voters Summit of this past weekend featured an introduction of Texas Governor Rick Perry by a grand poobah of the Southern Baptists who declared Mitt Romney's faith affliation to be that of a "cult."  This has long been the position of the Southern Baptists, the largest Protestant organization in the country, and its roots and prevalence in the south make it far from a fringe element.  To his credit, Jon Huntsman, the former Ambassador to China, who also happens to share Romney's LDS faith, referred to Perry's introducer as, in effect, a bonehead. Romney, for his part, has remained silent while he and his advisors try to chart a path to the nomination by downplaying Iowa and South Carolina, where the numbers of Southern Baptists in the caucus and primary electorate are sufficiently high to dim Romney's prospects on grounds of the Mormon question alone.

It's a sad -- and interesting -- commentary that the gumbas that have been so unfairly anti-Obama, in the process abandoning policy positions held by Republicans for decades, to deny a political victory to the object of their derision would so blatantly self-destruct on a petard of religious bigotry.  But if you live by the sword of intolerance you may well die by the sword of intolerance.  Among the current field of GOP candidates for the nomination, Romney has the best chance of defeating Obama in 2012.  Americans are not ready for Rick Perry or any other of the far-right ayatollahs as their president, so Democrats and Obama supporters shouldn't feel too sorry for the Republican intolerance turned inward.  Nevertheless, it's hardly a source of pride that the best thing the Democratic party and candidates have going for them in 2012 is their Republican opposition.