I’ve pondered over Mitt’s speech on thursday and have watched with disbelief and amusement over many of the knee-jerk commentaries by very biased journalists. Only a few seemed to hear what Mitt was trying to say and most jumped on the “mitt’s really a fanatical evangelical in hiding” wagon.

I wondered if they heard the same speech I did.

In trying to understand what was behind the rhetoric I realized that they indeed had heard a different speech. Not that the words were different, only the definition of words and phrases they applied to his speech. Many are suspicious of anyone of strong faith creating a Christian theocrasy. And many others are suspicious that our LDS leaders will dictate to Washington. Nobody seems too bothered with actually checking out if our leaders will do so or have ever done so. Many were looking for another example of Mitt “flip flopping” and others were just tired of hearing religion being discussed in with politics. These different biases, and the fact that journalism needs hype and complaint to make money, colored many of the responses.

I also realized that most are not used to the way Mormon’s look at government, the constitution, God or any of the other theme’s that get brought up in discussing Mitt Romney’s theological/political views.

What I got out of it was that Mitt got rid of the “My religious way or the highway” that people are used to hearing from the more rhetorical of the born again Christians and stated eloquently that we each bring something important to the theological table that makes up this country. And while he didn’t mention much about those who choose not to believe in any God, keeping in mind his primary audience for this primary election, his speech wasn’t aimed at those who don’t believe. In many ways, though he was reminding us that we have to work together for our freedoms, and that our religious views is an integral part of that cooperation.

I know many will take his comments and make them sound like he thinks only people of faith make good citizens, but his comments was aimed at those who think that anyone who doesn’t believe their way is worthy of suspicion. I felt moved by his speech in a way that I haven’t been moved by any politician in a long time. I heard someone devoted to bringing everyone to the table and working on our challenges, not just giving up on them.
I think Mitt was smart to go past the petty bickering over doctrine, declare himself faithful to his theological principles and then talk about what we have in common in this country. Most people probably don’t realize that Mormons will fight for your right to disagree with us. Nor do they realize that we consider the Constitution and living, breathing document that should be respected and valued. We also consider the Founding Father’s inspired men. Imperfect to be sure, but still inspired men. Think about it, How many people do you know can be handed a monarchy and say,” No thanks, you rule yourselves” ?

This entry was posted on Monday, December 10th, 2007 at 10:31 am and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.