Meaning at least half our country’s population have no idea what the hell a Mormon is — Rick Perry included.
Mitt Romney’s religion has been one of the most talked about and bizarrely controversial topics of the 2012 presidential election. Texas Governor Rick Perry — a devout and delusional Christian — has taken particular offense to Romney’s practiced religion. Robert Jeffress, a popular Baptist pastor and vocal supporter of Perry, deemed Mormonism a cult during Perry’s introduction at the Voters Value Summit. Perry’s potshots at Romney’s religion have been rather petty and ridiculous, however they’ve managed to garner plenty of headlines. In fact it’s a rarity when a day of news coverage goes by without a candidate taking a utterly unnecessary swipe at someone’s faith.
A couple months ago I vowed to say as far away from this campaign as metaphysically possible. However as a conscious American with a pulse, let alone a writer, avoiding the 2012 election has become relatively impossible — or at least I thought it was.
According to a recent poll conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute 58 percent of Americans have absolutely no clue Mitt Romney is Mormon. An optimist might say that statistic is evidence that Americans don’t see religion as a determining factor when casting their vote for our country’s commander and chief. However to a realist that figure is downright frightening. Not knowing Romney is a Mormon is like not knowing Herman Cain is black (surprise!).
According to The Hill:
Mitt Romney might be leading or tied in the polls for the key primary states, but only 42 percent are able to identify him as a Mormon, according to a Public Religion Research Institute poll released Thursday.
Forty-five percent of those polled said they didn’t know what Romney’s religion was, while 10 percent misidentified him as Protestant, Catholic or some other denomination, or said they didn’t think he was religious.
Even as the primary season heats up and the candidates have been scrutinized on nationally televised debates that have pulled in massive ratings, the number of people who can correctly identify Romney as a Mormon remains virtually unchanged from July, when 40 percent were able to do so.
Presidential candidates shouldn’t be judged by their faith, but the fact that over half of the country doesn’t know Romney is Mormon means an extremely large segment of our country is completely unconscious. Honestly, Romney’s religion should have seeped into people’s minds through osmosis by simply living in the United States. It’s in the newspaper in the morning, on national news in the evening and on websites every single day.
These poll results have nothing to do with religion, because quite frankly Romney’s desire to have 40 kids and vacation in Utah is his own business. The problem is the fact that Americans are complete oblivious to current events. It’s terrifying that this ignorance reflects a large percentage of our registered voters. If they don’t know Romney is Mormon what else don’t they know?
[The Hill]
October 28, 2011 at 4:43 pm, Tsoi said:
no worries…90% don’t realize he flip-flops by the day…nothing new there….
October 28, 2011 at 6:00 pm, JJJ4 said:
Of course, since he’s running against Obama who had almost no political career except voting “present” before becoming president and still has reached an epic level of flip-flops, no worries there. (“I’ll close Guantanamo” “I’ll go through legislation line by line to cut out the pork” “I’m going to have the most transparent government and you’ll see debates on CSPAN–except I’ll try to ban entire news organizations from the White House and I’ll support any sneaky secret negotiations it takes to get the Healthcare law passed” “Let’s give foreign terrorists US civilian trials. No wait, lets just assassinate them just like American citizens” “Bush was evil for going to war with the approval of Congress, but I didn’t bother to ask Congress about Libya” “End the Patriot Act, er, hmm now that I get to use it, I like it.” “Don’t go to Las Vegas, er I mean, DO go” “I’m like, a Special Olympics athlete, ha ha, er I mean I have great respect for those with disabilities.” “Bill Ayers, who? Rev. Wright who?”……..
October 28, 2011 at 4:44 pm, Tsoi said:
By the way…how many of the women in this picture with this article are his wives???
October 28, 2011 at 5:00 pm, Etec said:
Another uneducated person who doesn’t know what a Mormon is. You must be a Perry supporter who doesn’t kow what a Christian is.
October 28, 2011 at 5:52 pm, Anonymous said:
Another uneducated person who doesn’t know what a joke is.
October 28, 2011 at 5:52 pm, JJJ4 said:
Only one. If he had more than one wife, he’d be kicked out of his church.
October 28, 2011 at 5:51 pm, JJJ4 said:
Romney doesn’t have or want 40 kids. And don’t forget, a pretty big segment of the population still can’t correctly identify President Obama’s religion and that didn’t stop him from getting elected. Religion is pretty much a non-issue to the majority of America. Sure, you see polls that say people would be more or less likely to vote for a member of this or that religion, but the actual asking of the question forces people to think about an issue that they might have (and probably should have) just ignored.
October 29, 2011 at 12:10 am, Freed0m2012 said:
I’ve seen this analysis as of late, but it is very flawed. A more meaningful statistic would be how many people who decided on supporting a candidate know that Mitt is a Mormon. What I would expect is that as more people choose a candidate, they will continue to either make and issue or not make an issue of Mitt’s faith in similar proportion to voters that are currently backing candidates. So, this is really a non-issue. Most of those who don’t know that Mitt is a Mormon likely are not yet involved or supporting a candidate. And I would suspect that many of those people are actually Democrats that will not be voting in the Republican primary. So, in the end, you will likely not see some big anti-Mormon shift because it is already (at least partially) factored in to the current percentage of people who say they do or do not support a particular candidate. Besides, I would be a bit ashamed to not vote for someone due to the faith.
A concern of mine is that the media is continually trying to point to Mitt’s Mormonism as potentially being an issue. It makes people stop and think, “should I have a problem with Mormons? I didn’t before, but maybe I should, etc….” It’s not an issue, let’s stop making it one. And don’t they go to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints? That church has gone on record asking the media to use its actual historical name and not the nickname that is so often applied.
November 01, 2011 at 10:52 am, Franck said:
How and why is this taken to mean that “at least half our country’s population have no idea what the hell a Mormon is”? Seems like a non sequitur.