Should Mormon Mitt Romney return nicotine-laced donations?

Mitt Romney refuses to say whether he wears the Mormon temple garment, but the Republican presidential candidate swears he abides by most other Biblically endowed rules, like abstaining from alcohol and tobacco. In a People magazine interview last December, Romney confessed, “[I've] never had drinks or tobacco. It’s a religious thing. I tasted a beer and tried a cigarette once, as a wayward teenager, and never did it again.”

Personal prohibition aside, Romney appears more than willing to accept forbidden fruits from the tobacco industry. According to FEC files at the Center for Responsive Politics, the White House hopeful has accepted $36,550 from either groups or people working for the makers of sinful yet delicious cigarettes. By comparison, Obama, a smoker, has received $12,450, while the rest of the presidential candidates vary, but are all less than $5,000. Romney’s also received $25,950 from the casino and gambling industry. Games of chance are also wicked, according to the Church of Latter-Day Saints.

“The Church opposes gambling in any form, including government-sponsored lotteries,” reads LDS’ official homepage. The All About Mormons section of Light Planet explains, “Gambling is founded upon the ‘desire to get something of value for little or nothing [according to their gospel], it cultivates within us a spirit which opposes the divine ability to work for that which we desire… Gambling cultivates a spirit of craftiness and contention.” As for tobacco, the scripture reads, “tobacco is not for the abody, neither for the belly, and is not good for man, but is an herb for bruises and all sick cattle, to be used with judgment and skill.”

Discussing this story, my colleague Alex Moore mentioned how, in the post-Citizen United United States, the line between ethics and political coffers is not blurred, but totally obliterated. Compared to all the shady and dirty money going into all the campaigns, Romney’s tobacco and gambling donations are less than a drop in a bucket. They’re one droplet of cash-soaked condensation. They’re basically two simple hydrogen atoms stuck to an oxygen. But the tensions between Romney’s personal faith and his campaign’s need for cash speak to the moral porousness of politicking.

Candidates have returned dirty money in the past — President Obama and the DNC returned a total of $70,000 donated by disgraced MF Global CEO Jon Corzine and his wife — so asking the Romney campaign to return the dough wouldn’t be unprecedented. Plus, wouldn’t it be fun to watch Romney try to come up with a defense of his moral fortitude? Or maybe he’d just quip, “Hey, at least tobacco and gambling aren’t as evil as my best-friends over at Goldman Sachs: they helped ruin the economy and I totally accepted their $496,430!”