Court sides with polygamist families

Breaking news in the Texas polygamy raid from the NYT:

A Texas state court of appeals ruled Thursday afternoon that the state of Texas had no right to seize more than 400 children from a polygamist ranch in Eldorado, in the western part of the state.

The ruling asserted that the state’s child protection agency not only acted hastily in removing the children from the Yearning for Zion Ranch in April but also failed to show that they were in immediate danger. According to the court, the state did not establish proper grounds to remove the children from their families, who belong to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or F.L.D.S. The F.L.D.S. broke off from the mainstream Mormon church after it had disavowed polygamy in 1890.

At news conference in San Angelo, the closest city to Eldorado, a lawyer for the sect said it was unclear when the families would be reunited, and that the team was reviewing the next legal steps in the process.

Many of Texas' FLDS teen girls pregnant, mothers

More bad news regarding all those children taken into Texas custody when their parents' polygamist ranch was raided earlier this month. From AP:

SAN ANTONIO - More than half the teen girls taken from a polygamist compound in west Texas have children or are pregnant, state officials said Monday.

A total of 53 girls between the ages of 14 and 17 are in state custody after a raid 3 1/2 weeks ago at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado. Of those girls, 31 either have children or are pregnant, said Child Protective Services spokesman Darrell Azar. Two of those are pregnant now, he said; it was unclear whether either of those two already have children.

"It shows you a pretty distinct pattern, that it was pretty pervasive," he said.

To be fair, I know some churches that wouldn't fair much better on a non-pregnant, per-capita basis. The difference, of course, is that the pregnancies in the former were caused by a now-repudiated religious lifestyle while in the later they're borne of, as Juno's mom puts it, teenage boredom.

NBA player discusses growing up with polygamists

To this point, I haven't posted about the raid of a polygamist community in Texas that delivered some 400 children into foster care. But this interview from CBS' "Early Show" is a good entry point. (Blogger won't let me embed the video, so click here.)

The subject is Cleveland Cavaliers center Lance Allred, who grew up in a polygamist community. It's an odd rambling interview, and, when asked whether he ever saw signs of sexual abuse, Allred answers yes but then gives a strange qualification:

"You can get caught up in the black and white of it all. There are bad apples in every religion who exploit people."

Romney says Mormons not Christians?

From the Unlikely About Face Department:

"Mitt Romney has acknowledged that Mormonism is not a Christian faith."

That comment was made by a policy expert from Focus on the Family. But if you recall from his faith in America speech, Romney said:

I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind. My church’s beliefs about Christ may not all be the same as those of other faiths. Each religion has its own unique doctrines and history.

In other words: We're as Christian as Lutherans and Catholics. Romney's campaign has rebutted the Focus on the Family claim.

GetReligion has the backstory and a bit more explanation:

There’s quite a bit of buzz out there right now in evangelical circles about a series of informational videos that are up and running at CitizenLink.org — which is part of the wider kingdom linked to an activist by the name of James Dobson. The videos feature clips of recent webcasts with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council.

Right now, everyone is asking — will Dobson endorse either (gasp) Mitt Romney or (gasp!) John McCain? It is in that context that the following blog item by Michael Scherer appears at Time, with the pushy headline: “A stealth Mitt Romney endorsement from the religious right’s powerbrokers?”

The clip on Rudy Giuliani is harsh (note that reference to dancing in drag). No surprise. The McCain video says voters have no way of knowing what the senator will do next. No surprise. Then the video on Mike Huckabee is surprisingly critical. No surprise?

After praising Huckabee’s social views, both Perkins and Tom Minnery, a policy expert at Focus on the Family, hammer the former Arkansas governor for his foreign policy views. Minnery suggests that Huckabee does not understand the cause for which American troops are dying in Iraq. Then Perkins suggests that Huckabee lacks the fiscal and national security credentials needed for a conservative presidential candidate. “The conservatives have been successful in electing candidates, and presidents in particular, when they have had a candidate that can address not only the social issues, [but] the fiscal issues and the defense issues,” says Perkins. “[Huckabee] has got to reach out to the fiscal conservatives and the security conservatives.” Ouch.

Now hang on, here comes the buried lede.

So what about Romney? He comes up roses. “He has staked out positions on all three of the areas that we have discussed,” says Perkins. “I think he continues to be solidly conservative.” Then Minnery defends Romney from criticism that he is too polished and smooth. “Mitt Romney has acknowledged that Mormonism is not a Christian faith,” Minnery adds. “But on the social issues we are so similar.”

So what's the reality here?

Mormon prophet and president dead at 97

Gordon B. Hinckley, the 97-year-old president and prophet of the Mormon church, died earlier today. From the NY Times:

“He’s been the face of the church, not only for church members, but more than any other president, to the world at large,” said Richard Lyman Bushman, professor of history emeritus at Columbia University, a member and scholar of the church. “He exposed himself to all these interviews and seemed to enjoy it. That has won the admiration of church members. We have been a little bit isolated and clannish, and it’s wonderful to see our church presented to the world.”

During his tenure, Mr. Hinckley faced tough questions about whether the church had muzzled critical scholars and about the role of Mormons in the Mountain Meadows massacre in 1857, when a wagon train of emigrants crossing the Utah territory was attacked. Under Mr. Hinckley, a church magazine published an article about the event, and a memorial was constructed at the massacre site.

He would often disarm interrogators with peppery humor, once welcoming a New Yorker magazine reporter to his office with the greeting, “All writers should be put in a box and thrown in the sea.”

In Mr. Hinckley’s term, the church grew to count more than 12 million members worldwide — more than the largest Lutheran denomination. It is now believed to be the fourth largest church in the United States. (But the Mormon church has acknowledged reports that a significant percentage of new converts, especially overseas, do not remain active members.)

Mormon presidents serve in office until their death, but Mr. Hinckley stood out for his enduring vigor. When his wife of 67 years, Marjorie Pay Hinckley, died in 2004, he told Larry King: “The best thing you can do is just keep busy, keep working hard, so you’re not dwelling on it all the time. Work is the best antidote for sorrow.”

President Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004.

Not surprisingly, the Salt Lake Tribune has all kinds of coverage.

Sibling spat: Mormons believe Jesus and Satan are brothers

Get ready for an uproar, folks. Mike Huckabee apparently told a New York Times reporter that Mormons believe that Jesus and Satan were brothers. The story isn't going to run until Sunday, but somebody leaked details to the Associated Press. AP has now moved a story suggesting that Huckabee's a nut and an ignoramus for making such a crazy intolerant statement. There's only problem -- Huckabee is right...

That's from my man in Arkansas, the Bible Belt Blogger. Read the rest here.

(Image: FrenBlog)

Waiting for Joseph Smith

Manya Brachear, who was a Gralla Fellows with me, goes a bit deeper than just wondering whether Mitt Romney's speech yesterday will quell fears about his faith. (For evangelicals, the LA Times reports nothing will.) On her excellent religion blog, The Seeker, Brachear writes about a glaring omission in Romney's name dropping.

Abraham Lincoln, Brigham Young, John Adams and, of course, John F. Kennedy. But there was one name he did not invoke.

Where was Joseph Smith?

Just as John F. Kennedy was not the first Roman Catholic to run for the White House, Romney is not the first Mormon to do so. Prophet Joseph Smith Jr. announced his candidacy in January 1844. As mayor of the Nauvoo City Council, Smith ran on a platform of the gradual abolition of slavery, a reduction in the size of Congress, a national bank, territorial expansion that included the annexation of Texas and Oregon and radical prison reform that would have converted all prison sentences into community service.

He also championed a "theodemocracy," a form of government that would guarantee Americans the freedom to attach themselves to whatever moral community they desired. Each community and its religious institutions would work toward developing a public and private morality while government would work to protect their liberties.

That ideal might have inspired a candidate more than 150 years later.

"Religious tolerance would be a shallow principle indeed if it were reserved only for faiths with which we agree,” Romney said Thursday. “There are some who would have a presidential candidates describe and explain his church’s distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution. No candidate should become a spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes president he will need the prayers of people of all faiths."

But how would we know whether Smith inspired Romney? The Mormon prophet was never mentioned in Romney’s speech. The omission of that legacy is a shame, said Terryl Givens, a professor of literature and religion at the University of Richmond and a Mormon. But it’s also understandable.

Mitt Romney's unremarkable JFK moment *

Today was the much anticipated day when former Massachussets Gov. Mitt Romney would explain the role of religion in public life and work to diffuse voter apprehension to his Mormon faith.
Here's video of the speech and some excerpts, which left me fully underwhelmed.

"There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church's distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution. No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes President he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths."

Yeah, it's sort of his JFK moment, and I agree with what he is saying. But when you get down to the substance, it's just political rhetoric and vagaries.

* Updated: Jeffrey Weiss at the DMN religion blog says Romney is trying to have it both ways by saying he will be true to his Mormon faith and that as long as he serves all Americans, the specific of his religious beliefs are nobody else's business.

But as I wrote in January, there are distinctives of Mormon doctrine that could have public policy implications. If he chooses to follow them, it won’t be necessary to have a church authority tell him what to do. And if he doesn't tell us which of those distinctives he considers essential to his faith, how will we know?

Romney doesn't want a Muslim Cabinet official

Like I've said here and here andhere and here and here and here and etc., Americans have become far to fixated on religious representation in politics. From the blog that tells us all about God talk on the presidential campaign trail:

Mitt Romney, the presidential candidate most disadvantaged by his personal religious faith, said earlier this month that "based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified."

"But of course," Romney continued. "I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration."

You can read all about Romney's remarks today's Christian Science Monitor, in a not-to-be-missed op-ed by Mansoor Ijaz, a Muslim investor who asked Romney about Muslim appointees at a fundraiser earlier this month. Here's the Romney team's response.

Ijaz does a perfectly good job refuting Romney himself, so God-o-Meter will only state the obvious. How can a presidential candidate whose Mormon faith accounts for just 2-percent of the American population rule out a Muslim in his cabinet on the basis that Islam has too few American adherents?

'Mormon Robin Hood' robbin' banks

Julio Cesar Rodriguez says he stole from the rich, gave to the poor and got caught because he didn't cover his face when he tried to knock over the San Fernando Citibank.

Prosecutors charged the 32-year-old Arleta man with 14 counts of robbery and attempted robbery Tuesday in a string of bank jobs dating back to 2004. Though his arraignment was delayed until later this month, police said he has admitted his guilt and cooperated with the investigation.

The Los Angeles Police Department alleges Rodriguez snatched close to half a million bucks out of bank vaults throughout the northeast San Fernando Valley. When Detective Ursula Guillory of the Robbery-Homicide Division asked what he did with the proceeds, Rodriguez offered a shocking answer.

"He said, 'I spent a little on myself, then I went down to Skid Row and handed it out,'" Guillory said. "He went on to tell us about all the rest of the robberies."

She'd been tracking him for months, based on DNA evidence obtained from the scarf he used to cover his face in an earlier robbery in Van Nuys. He'd scribbled lines from the Book of Mormon inside alluding to 1st Nephi 3:7. Guillory asked him about the passage, and he said he belonged to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"Now I've got a bank-robbing, Mormon Robin Hood," she said. "He was very cooperative and said he wanted to be responsible. He said, 'I don't want to waste your time, detective.'"

That's the top of an article in today's LA Daily News by the always excellent Brent Hopkins. A contributer to the It's A Crime blog, Brent sent me this note when I told him I liked his story:

Now I'm not an expert in all the tenets of the Mormon faith, but I'm guessing that "don't rob banks" fits somewhere in between "don't drink coffee", "don't smoke cigarettes" and "spread the word of the Joseph Smith and/or the Lord."

'Gingerly, Romney Seeks Ties to Christian Right'

Tell me something I didn't know already. Re-reportage from the NY Times:

He has invoked the Rev. Rick Warren, a popular evangelical author and megachurch pastor. He has quoted Scripture and alluded to the Gideon Bible as favorite late-night reading. And he has cited his belief in Jesus Christ as his personal “savior.”

As Mitt Romney has had to grapple with suspicions about his Mormon religion during his presidential run, he has tried in various ways to signal his kinship with evangelical Christians, who represent a crucial constituency of the Republican base but consider his religious beliefs to be heretical.

He faces a delicate task in trying to stake out common ground with conservative Christians, while not running afoul of deeply rooted evangelical sensitivities about any blurring of distinctions between Mormonism and conventional Protestantism.

Romney's got a date Friday with the Values Voter Summit (because everyone else votes for things they don't value). His aids still aren't sure if he'll directly address his religious beliefs then. Polls continue to show many Americans would not vote for a Mormon president, no matter how qualified they may be.

Mormon hunks calendar created by Sin City missionary

The Las Vegas Sun picked up Saturday on that story about the 12 months of undressed Mormon missionaries, and talks to creator of the calendar, Chad Hardy, who hopes photos of the suit pants and shirts beefcakes sell like hot cakes.

A 31-year-old returned missionary aiming at some holy combination of seduction and surprise. Mormons stripped down to show us, with their unapologetic camera coyness, that they're not "these awkward, naive religion peddlers. Kind of dorky. A little backwards, or cult members."

Hardy has sold more than 1,000 calendars since September. Come Christmas, he'll have them in 500 stores throughout the country. Meanwhile, some church members have called for his excommunication.

The calendar has been disparaged on LDS Web sites, where anonymous writers have suggested Hardy is no longer worthy of his church. One commenter asked, "Did you each get 30 pieces of silver for your betrayal?" - a reference to Judas' payment for betraying Jesus. And not every writer has been so delicate in his phrasing.

The Mormon faith embraces modesty and sees sexuality as something best expressed in the marriage bed. So for many Mormons, photographing an icon of chaste spirituality doing his best to affect sexiness is utterly horrifying.

(skip)

Hardy says the Mormons he knows - with the exception of an aunt in Arizona - think the calendar will help dispel the myth of the milquetoast missionary. Moreover, they think it's hilarious. They see a calendar beef-caked to a degree that borders on parody. This view has also been expressed in Internet debates over the calendar, though seldom without swift return fire from the dissenting camp.

"This is not just a calendar ; it's a movement," Hardy says. "We want them to laugh at us. We don't care. We are comfortable enough in our faith."

Pew: Americans know little about Muslims, Mormons

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released a poll today on American understanding of Muslims and Mormons and opinions of Pope Benedict XVI. It's a follow up on this May report on American Muslim attitudes.

Mitt Romney sits down with Christianity Today

We all know Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who is Mormon, could use some evangelical support. So it's no wonder he chatted with my former editor at Christianity Today, who recently left to attend seminary. The Q&A went online this morning.

Many Christians voted for President Bush out of a feeling of faith kinship. Do you see any drawbacks to that type of voter affinity?

People should be able to vote for who they like on whatever basis they like. I try not to counsel my fellow Americans on how they make their decisions. I think by and large democracy works pretty well.

Many times, people are misinformed about a candidate or their positions, and that's unfortunate. But if they have accurate, complete views, I say let them vote as they wish.

How are voters misinformed about you?

I just don't think many people know me very well at this stage, and that's to be expected. I'm a governor, and therefore not yet a national figure. I anticipate by the time the primary season rolls around next year that I will be very well known and will either be strongly supported or will be someone people don't want to back. I'm pleased that I'm connecting with voters in the states where I've spoken most frequently—states like Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, South Carolina, and Florida.

(skip)

But has your candidacy exposed differences between the two religions?

While the doctrines of my church are quite different from evangelical Christian doctrines, the values of our faiths are very much the same. I don't know of a doctrinal difference that would suggest a different policy outcome or that would suggest that a President of my faith would lead in a different direction than President Bush, an evangelical Christian.

When I was governor here in Massachusetts, a number of Catholics wondered what it would mean to have a Mormon as a governor. After some time, one of the leading Catholics in our state remarked to my Catholic deputy chief of staff, "The best friend we have on Capitol Hill (Beacon Hill) is the Mormon governor, not the Catholic legislators." He was joking a bit, but the value base that we share is so pronounced that the differences of doctrine really disappear.

Perhaps it's difficult for some when two faiths have been in the battle place of ideas to say that we disagree on doctrine but share a very strong value base. It's almost like a strong Republican and a strong Democrat have been battling for ideas in America for 50 years, and they suddenly find themselves in a foxhole fighting the Germans. They have no problem working with each other, because whether you're a strong Democrat or a strong Republican, you share the same American hope for the future.

How do you answer evangelicals who want their President to have faith but not your faith?

It depends on what they worry about. Do they want agreement on doctrine, and does that really effect how someone leads as President? Or does someone want a President who shares values and will preserve the values and culture of America? That will only happen if people band together where we share common values.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I wish people wouldn't vote for politicians based on their purported religious views. I'm fairly confident that Mitt Romney is a sincere Mormon; if not, he would have dropped the shtick a while ago because it's been nothing but campaign baggage. But I'm very skeptical of other candidates who profess to be the flavor-of-the-decade brand of Christian.

You know what I'd like this time around? A good president.

The president's own personal Jesus

I've kvetched quite a bit about the insincerity of presidential candidates playing the God card. I don't want to hear about it, I said. But in this week's Time magazine, Michael Kinsley writes that he wants to know more.

These days presidential candidates are required to wear their religion on their sleeve. God is a personal adviser and inspiration to all of them. They all pray relentlessly. Or so they say. If that's not true, I want to know it. And if it is true, I want to know more about it. I want to know what God is telling them--just as I would want to know what Karl Rove was telling them if they claimed him for an adviser. If religion is central to their lives and moral systems, then it cannot be the candidates' "own private affair." To evaluate them, we need to know in some detail the doctrines of their faith and the extent to which they accept these doctrines. "Worry about whether I'm going to reform health care, not whether I'm going to hell" is not sufficient.

What exactly should we worry about? Most important, we need to know what forms of conduct a candidate's religion forbids or requires and how the candidate interprets that injunction. Is it a universal moral imperative or just a personal lifestyle choice? Every religion has its list of no-nos. Mormonism's is very long and includes alcohol, coffee, tea and such forms of sexual behavior as "passionate kissing" outside wedlock. If Romney's church doctrines require efforts to impose these restrictions on others, Romney has a Cuomo problem: he cannot be a good Mormon and a good President. ...

It will be amusing if Romney is done in by a fear of his religious values because, as near as we can tell, he has no values of any sort that he wouldn't happily abandon if they became a burden. But in politics, you are who you pretend to be.

Mormon missionaries undressed

Here's a Saturday surprise from TMZ, by way of a hat tip from the GeekHeeb.

Hot priests are so last year! The hottest calendar for 2008 is the Men on a Mission calendar, full of hot, shirtless Mormon men. What would Joseph Smith, Jr. say?! The "devout dozen" jumped off their bikes long enough to pose for the controversial day keeper, each of the LDS lotharios having just returned from missions around the world. Go west, young men!

The calendar and other products can be found at MormonsExposed.com. I prefer the "Family Values" t-shirt.

Joseph Smith for president

Mitt Romney is having trouble assuring voters that his Mormon faith isn't a bad thing. But a new documentary, "A Mormon for President," wants you to know that Romney's not the first to encounter such problems. From my press-release junk box:

The film is being helmed by producer/director Adam Christing, a member of the Mormon History Association. "Very few people realize that Romney is not the first Mormon to run for the White House," says Christing, who studied theology at Biola University in Los Angeles. "The first Mormon to run for the Presidency was actually the first Mormon, the prophet, Joseph Smith. Those who want to understand Romney's challenge today, must first understand Joseph Smith."

Much has been written about Joseph Smith, whose 200th birthday was in 2005, and I'm not going to attempt to add to that. But here's a few links.

Mitt Romney: Draft dodger? Not quite

As the Vietnam War raged in the 1960s, Mitt Romney received a deferment from the draft as a Mormon "minister of religion" for the duration of his missionary work in France, which lasted two and a half years.

Before and after his missionary deferment, Romney also received nearly three years of deferments for his academic studies. When his deferments ended and he became eligible for military service in 1970, he drew a high number in the annual lottery that determined which young men were drafted. His high number ensured he was not drafted into the military.

The deferments for Mormon missionaries became increasingly controversial in the late 1960s, especially in Utah, leading the Mormon Church and the government to limit the number of church missionaries who could put off their military service. That agreement called for each church ward, or church district, to designate one male every six months to be exempted from potential duty for the duration of his missionary work.

Romney's home state was Michigan, making his 4-D exemption as a missionary all but automatic because of the relatively small number of Mormon missionaries from that state.

That is a Web exclusive from part one of the Boston Globe's ambitious seven-part series that began Sunday, "The Making of Mitt Romney." Part two looks at Romney's mission in France. So far, Romney's Mormon faith has caused him a lot of grief as he seeks the Republican presidential nomination.

Evangelicals: Romney not 'guided by God'

As I've written about before, Mitt Romney is suffering heavily in his quest to become the next American president because of his Mormon faith. In yesterday's LA Times, Stephanie Simon illuminated the problems surrounding the Mormon factor by talking to evangelicals -- the politically active and conservative brand of Christians who were so influential in electing, and somehow re-electing, President Bush.

"When it comes right down to it," says (Bible book store worker Marty) Thomas, 40, "a Mormon's strength is human. A Christian person's strength is superhuman. I want [a president] who has that extra on his side."

In his quest for the Republican presidential nomination, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney — a lifelong Mormon — has often reminded voters that he's running for commander in chief, not pastor in chief. What's important, Romney says, is that he has strong faith; the details are irrelevant.

But a sharp concern about the Mormon Church shows up in poll after national poll. About one in three voters would be less likely to support a Mormon candidate. The faith draws among the most unfavorable ratings of any religion. Doubts run especially deep among evangelicals, who may account for as many as half the votes cast in Republican primaries in the South.

Some evangelicals can articulate specific Mormon beliefs that disturb them — for instance, the teaching that only married couples can achieve the most exalted realms of heaven.

Many others want to give Romney a chance; they like his conservative politics. Yet they feel uneasy about turning over the country to a man who has a radically different — and in their view, heretical — understanding of God.

This is not an arcane theological dispute; to some born-again Christians, it's at the very core of presidential leadership. If Romney does not understand what they take to be God's true nature, can he still receive divine guidance? If he doesn't accept the Trinity as they conceptualize it, can he still be filled with the strength of the Holy Spirit?

Such concerns about Romney's faith, are, of course, based on the premise that government officials, particularly the once-clear-though-now-disputed leader of the free world, should share the religious views of their constituents.

Why it's not good to keep it in the 'family'

Polygamy is one of the dark not-so secrets of Mormon Church history. Until about 100 years ago, it was common practice. In fact, presidential contender Mitt Romney is the great-great grandson of a venerated polygamist martyr.

Only its fundamentalist break-away sect, lead by previously most-wanted Warren Jeffs, still practices polygamy, which has caused them plenty of problems, including health, according to ABC News.

In a dusty neighborhood under sheer sandstone cliffs studded with juniper on the Arizona-Utah border, a rare genetic disorder is spreading through polygamous families on a wave of inbreeding.

The twin border communities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, have the world's highest known prevalence of fumarase deficiency, an enzyme irregularity that causes severe mental retardation brought on by cousin marriage, doctors say.

"Arizona has about half the world's population of known fumarase deficiency patients," said Dr. Theodore Tarby, a pediatric neurologist who has treated many of the children at Arizona clinics under contracts with the state.

"It exists in a certain percentage of the broader population but once you get a tendency to inbreed you're inbreeding people who have the gene there, so you markedly increase the risk of developing the condition," he said.

The community of about 10,000 people, who shun outsiders and are taught to avoid newspapers, television and the Internet, is home to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), a sect that broke from the mainstream Mormon church 72 years ago over polygamy.

The group, who wear conservative 19th-century clothing, is led by Warren Jeffs, who was arrested in August and charged as an accomplice to rape for using his authority to order a 14-year-old girl against her wishes to marry and have sex with her 19-year-old cousin.