A Mormon for president?

A MORMON FOR PRESIDENT? If Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts runs for the Republican nomination for president as expected, he won't be the first Mormon to have done so. Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah ran briefly in 2000, and Romney's own father, George, was a Republican hopeful in 1967. Less well known is the fact that Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon church, ran for president in 1844.

Smith, an abolitionist and a proponent of communal ownership of property, was killed by a mob in June of that year. Most Mormons today are politically conservative and solidly Republican. Since many evangelicals consider Mormons to be members of a cult, Romney will have to win them over if he has any hope of getting the GOP nomination. This no doubt explains why Romney is taking positions on abortion and stem cell research that are more conservative than his church's. Although the Mormon church is pro-life, it doesn't consider abortion murder since it has no clear position on when the soul enters the body. The church has no position on stem cell research, but all five Mormon U.S. senators support it, as do 60 percent of Mormons in the state of Utah (Boston Globe, December 31).

COPYRIGHT 2007 The Christian Century Foundation
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