Why Romney Can't Win the Presidency and Still be a Good Mormon

The Mormons finally have their candidate for President!  No Mormon has run since Joseph Smith in 1844,  and members are basking in their "Mormon moment."  There are many things to savor:  the LDS church is making in-roads with their gay and lesbian brethren, staying out of gay marriage battles such as California's Prop 8, we are seeing more friendly journalism toward Mormonism in the New York Times and Religious Dispatches, openly gay men are serving in their bishopbrics, even BYU has done an "It Gets Better" video.  It's almost as if Mormonism has joined the *gasp* mainstream.

As much as Mormons like being a little more accepted and understood at least culturally, I think that what Mormons abashedly like about themselves is that they ARE different.  They hold their value system very high and it is an integral part of your upbringing in a Mormon household.

Part of what makes Mormonism unique is the Word of Wisdom.  The Word of Wisdom has some guidelines in place for good health and it's pretty simple in its rules:  don't smoke, don't drink, no coffee, no tea, don't eat too much, and eat mostly vegetables (very paraphrased, of course, but that's the idea).  A few tenets of the Word of Wisdom are ignored regularly though, in fact John A. Widtsoe in 1930 said that refined flour was contrary to the Word of Wisdom.  I don't know a single Mormon that didn't grow up on Wonder Bread and the boxed Mac & Cheese, so I suppose there is some wiggle room or everyone would have lost their temple recommends.


Wandering the city streets, I was wondering to myself what a Romney White House would be like.  Would the White House dinners for Heads of State be alcohol free?  Would they serve coffee with dessert?  Would workers be allowed to smoke on the porch?  What would Mitt do if say, the president of France brought him a bottle of wine as a gift, or the Spanish ambassador brought him a box of cigars?  What would Romney do?

Here's what I think he'd do:  I think he'd accept the gift and then sell it on Ebay or Craig's list, because everything about Romney seems to be up for negotiation.


Adherence to the Word of Wisdom is taken pretty seriously, with those who violate it, especially the big ones like smoking and drinking, held to disciplinary action by their lay-clergy, or bishop. Speaking of bishops, did I mention that Mitt Romney was both a bishop and a stake president?  So if you were in Romney's ward and had a drinking/smoking problem, he would be the one to deny your temple recommend.

Unless you've been living under a rock and have never heard of Citizens United, the political game is changing this year and it's about unlimited funds and the Super Pac.  For a look at what super pacs do in a way that can make the explanation un-snooze worthy, check out this link by my unbeknownst to him boyfriend, Stephen Colbert:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colbert_Super_PAC

One of those conservative super pacs is Restore Our Future.  Renaissance Technologies http://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/contrib.php?cmte=C00490045&cycle=2012 gave $1 million to them and their holdings include approximately a 1% stake in Lorillard, a tobacco company, and another nearly 1% in Philip Morris.  Renaissance Technologies has over $23 billion in holdings (that's right, with a "b"), so though 1% may not seem like a lot, it is.  That's a lot of money being made through their tobacco investments, investments made on the backs of one in five deaths caused by tobacco use.  443,000 people die per year from smoking.  http://www.lung.org/finding-cures/our-research/trend-reports/Tobacco-Trend-Report.pdf


$1million may not seem like a lot of money in the political grand scheme of things but that'll buy a lot of cigarettes.


Now, let's move on to something super fun! It's called gambling and the Mormons don't approve.  At all.  The link below is what Mormons have to say about gambling.  I'm paraphrasing here (you can read the link below for the full story), but they basically think it's of the devil, leads to illegal and destructive behavior, and have never supported it under any circumstances.  Ever.

http://www.whatmormonsbelieve.org/mormons_gambling.html

Now, J. Willard Marriott is the CEO of Marriott International and a practicing Mormon.  The Marriott corporation is a behemoth, with properties all over the world, including (upon a simple google search) casinos in St. Kitts, Aruba, San Juan, Curacao, and the mother land, Las Vegas.

The Marriott Corporation gave $1 million to Restore Our Future.

Sheldon Adelson is a casino owning billionaire.  He pretty much single-handedly funded the failed Gingrich run for president.  He has a LOT of money to spare and he REALLY doesn't want to pay taxes on it.

Adelson himself only donated $7.5 million to conservative super pac Winning Our Future, but his wife, under her own name and also under the name of Adelson Drug Clinic donated $12.5 million.  That math, kids, totals $20 million.  Conservative super pacs are outspending the liberal super pacs $114 million to $26 million (http://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?cycle=2012&type=p&disp=O) to which one might ask, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!  During the course of my research, I saw that the conservative super pacs were being funded largely by oil, energy, refining, technology, real estate, and land development companies, whereas liberal ones were essentially in the business of preventing those companies from running rampant through the land and the economy.

I think Romney has a bit of a conundrum.  Does he live by the spirit of the law, or the letter of the law?  Does he sleep soundly at night, knowing that his run at the presidency is being paved in large part by gambling and tobacco interests, two industries completely and comprehensively at moral odds with the Mormon belief system?