Marshall’s Blog | Crazy Mormon Lib

Mitt Romney, the failed presidential candidate and famous Mormon, became known during his bid for the Oval Office in 2008 as a well-groomed, well-educated, well-spoken liar. If that’s too harsh, then let’s just say he gained a reputation for being duplicitous.

Don’t believe me? Just compare his policies from when he was a moderate Republican governor of a liberal state with his policies while he was running for president and trying to woo the conservative wing of his party.

Still, changing his mind on issues like stem cell research and health care don’t really bother me. He either had a change of heart, as he claimed, or he was doing the politically expedient thing. Either way, it’s not uncommon for politicians to pander for votes. However, other falsehoods baffled even his most ardent supporters.

For instance, during an interview with a Massachusetts journalist, he denied a key tenant of Mormonism, modern revelation. He did it in such a facile and off-handed manner, that it was shocking to many Mormons, who were normally some of his staunchest supporters.

As a liberal, I wasn’t a big fan of Romney, but this surprised me. I thought we at least held some common religious views, but apparently not. This was, in my mind, an absolute lie made for a short-term political gain.

The whole thing is a mystery. I know people who know Romney intimately and they vouch for the quality of his character above all else. Even some Democrats I know swear to his personal integrity. So what the hell happened?

Here’s my theory: Romney is Zelig.

Leonard Zelig is a character in a Woody Allen mockumentary who tries so hard to gain acceptance that he completely changes his appearance based on his present surroundings. He is the human chameleon. When he is with fat people, he becomes fat. When he is with black people, his skin turns black. When he is with Nazis during the holocaust, he becomes a passionate Nazi.

The premise behind Zelig’s supernatural powers is based partly on the fact that he is Jewish. From childhood, Zelig was worried about persecution based on circumstances beyond his control. The result was his unconscious ability to change himself into whatever would spare him from embarrassment, harassment and Anti-Semitism.

Now, just replace Jewish with Mormon, and voila, Romney is Zelig.

In 2007, I was in Jerusalem and I met a group of Mormon tourists at church. After chatting with them, I found out that one of them was a major Romney supporter. I asked him casually how the ramp up to the primaries was going. He responded that things were going spectacularly well because Jerry Falwell had just met with Mitt Romney. He said Falwell hadn’t endorsed Romney, but had declared that a Mormon wasn’t necessarily evil incarnate and therefore a viable candidate for the presidency.

I remember being revolted that Romney had been forced to kowtow to this “agent of intolerance” for a scrap of recognition. It was the religious right of the past centuries led by people like Jerry Falwell that persecuted Mormons nearly to extinction. “Christian” extremists raped, imprisoned and massacred my people. They passed extermination orders that claimed killing Mormons was not a crime, but a benefit to humanity. These same extremists kicked my people out of the United States of American, and then sent the Army in to destroy them completely.

Mormons survived only to be hunted down by U.S. Marshals, deprived of their property and their right to vote based solely on their religious beliefs. Polygamy was the main bone of contention. The practice was officially ended by the church in 1891 because the Supreme Court declared that Mormons didn’t have the right to religious freedom on that subject. I do not, in any way, condone polygamy. I do assert, however, that between consenting adults, our Constitution should protect the practice. (I also believe this would apply to gay marriage.)

Mitt Romney’s ancestors were among those who practiced polygamy and paid the price for it. Imagine that a U.S. Marshal comes to your door and asks if you’re married to more than one woman. If you answer yes, he will take all your property and money and put you in jail, leaving your family to fend for themselves. If you say that the other woman is your sister-in-law, then you can continue to take care of your family.

It’s not an easy answer. *Abraham lied about his wife while they were in Egypt. Wouldn’t the same thing be justified now as well? I don’t feel qualified to make a judgment on the subject. But what is clear, is that through extreme persecution, some level of dishonesty became acceptable in Mormon culture.

Fast forward to Romney. The anti-Mormon furor that surrounded his candidacy was disgusting and uncalled for. I personally don’t feel like I need to grovel or ask for my fellow Americans to accept my religion. I believe what I believe, I let others worship how, where and what they may. I believe that the policies and doctrines of my church should be debated and discussed openly, but that no one should be judged based solely on his or her religion. Basically, I don’t care if other people don’t like my religion.

But Romney cared. He wanted to win. He wanted to be accepted. And so, he began to flex and bend and grovel and obfuscate. Before we knew it, he was Zelig, the human chameleon.

To complicate matters further, a young Romney must have noticed that his father’s shining political career went down in flames when he spoke the truth about the Vietnam War. George Romney said he had been “brainwashed” into thinking the war was good. He was right to say that, and time has vindicated him. But the statement caused a massive uproar, public embarrassment, and the end of his career.

I wonder if that experience reinforced the idea for Romney: Fib, if you have to. Lie, if you need to. And so, when Romney is hanging out with the NRA, he is a “life long hunter.” When he is surrounded by Christian extremists, he is a self-hating Mormon. Now, hopefully, he is surrounded by his loving family, and he is a loving family man. Let’s hope he stays there.

*(Originally, I’d put that God told Abraham to lie. In the comments it came to my attention that it’s not stated where Abraham got the idea to do what he did. Sorry for my poor memory of the Old Testament. The point, however, remains valid.)