"The Mormons apparently believe that Jesus will return in Missouri rather than Armageddon: I wouldn’t care to bet on the likelihood of either. In the meanwhile, though, we are fully entitled to ask Mitt Romney about the forces that influenced his political formation and—since he comes from a dynasty of his church, and spent much of his boyhood and manhood first as a missionary and then as a senior lay official—it is safe to assume that the influence is not small. Unless he is to succeed in his dreary plan to borrow from the playbook of his pain-in-the-ass predecessor Michael Dukakis, and make this an election about competence not ideology, he should be asked to defend and explain himself, and his voluntary membership in one of the most egregious groups operating on American soil," – Hitch.
I think that if you insist that politics should obey religious doctrine as the only reliable guide to politics, as a large section of today's GOP does, then you have a duty to explain how your religious truth will guide your approach to governance. I don't like this, but this is what the GOP insists on. And so we'll see what evangelical voters make of various Mormon doctrines – gods, planets, and all – in judging Romney's fitness to be president.
I have no interest in judging Romney's faith. The only legitimate criticism of the Mormon Church in terms of its public identity is the secretness of its Temples and some of their ceremonies. I think voters have a right to know what a candidate does in those ceremonies and why, unlike most ceremonies in mainstream Christianity, they are hidden from view.
The Dish 