...a bit about the brethren giving Mitt direction on political positions. Also Ann Romney's change from saying EVERY woman should stay at home to her recent statement that women should be allowed to choose.

http://www.salon.com/2012/04/19/can_mitt_talk_to_women/

Some nuggets:

> “He’s not a man who has a moral core,” she said. “He’s very loyal to the Mormon church, pays his tithing, is faithful to his wife, but he doesn’t have a set of core values you can count on.” <

[...]

> So when Romney began claiming that he was pro-choice in his 1994 election, Dushku told the Globe, “I went to his office and I congratulated him on taking a pro-choice position. And his response was – Well, they told me in Salt Lake City I could take this position, and in fact I probably had to in order to win in a liberal state like Massachusetts.” <

[...]

> After Romney was elected governor of Massachusetts in 2002, according to Ron Scott’s Romney biography, Mormon leaders essentially redistricted the wards so Romney and Dushku would never cross paths. “To some, this dextrous and nearly transparent maneuver became known as the Dushku gerrymander, an unrequested courtesy extended to their former stake president Mitt Romney and his wife, who would never again have to be face to face with Judy Dushku while they worshiped.” <

It's true about the moral core. That is one thing I've noticed since leaving Mormonism. If you allow others to dictate every one of your moral values, how much of a moral core can you have? You really haven't thought about who you are and what you want and what you believe in. All you've thought about is being obedient to what someone else says you are and what someone else says you want and believe in. And if that someone changes their mind, you have to change your morals. At that point, are they morals at all? If they are for sale like that, I mean.

I tell my kids it's more important to be moral now than when they were Mormon because now their morals and values are their own and aren't being imposed upon them by a church. Now they have to figure out what they value and if they betray their values, they are betraying themselves. I've noticed a marked interest by both my kids about how kind they are to others and how much more willing they are to give service. Of course, they are teenagers and argue with each other like a 24/7 debate team but hopefully they will outgrow that since they are doing good in general kindness.

He has, in his career as a politician, explicitly endorsed torture (at a time when it was very convenient to do so). I couldn't care less about his being a Mormon - that only adds context to the issue.

That's a great article. It doesn't take the easy way out. There's no parroting of LDS propaganda, and all of the claims are backed up with examples.

Not only is Mitt Romney outed as being both clueless and ethically impaired, but so is Ann Romney.

More excerpts below:

When Ann Romney’s status as a stay-at-home mom became a political football in the last week, she went on Fox News and emphasized that it was all about choices, saying “We need to respect the choices that women make.” But at a 1994 campaign event, Ann Romney told low-income women in no uncertain terms that they should stay at home with their kids, according to Judith Dushku, a prominent Mormon feminist who knew the Romneys over several decades and attended the forum. It was also a contrast from Mitt Romney’s position at the time — and as recently as this January — which favored bringing low-income mothers into the workforce in exchange for welfare benefits.

The topic of that 1994 event, headlined by Ann Romney and the Children’s Defense Fund’s Marian Wright Edelman and held during Romney’s Senate race against Ted Kennedy, was women and children’s safety and rights, according to Dushku. The audience, she recalls, was predominately African-American and Latina women with young children in tow. They asked about welfare benefits, as reform and “welfare-to-work” were hot topics at the time. Ann Romney’s position, according to Dushku, was to be a stay-at-home mom at all costs — consistent with Mormon doctrine, if off-message for the campaign. When one audience member asked about community service, Ann Romney said, “I would just say no…You have no business going around in your community when your children are young,” Dushku remembers. She says now, “People almost booed and hissed.”

Fish Romney http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/04/romney-rejects-obamas-silver-spoon-comment/#comment-23529631

Dressage, the sport of royalty:

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/04/the-man-on-horseback.html

So Mitt is a perfect Mormon.