I borrowed this from the link below.......this was so well written and so well said, that I just had to share it. The highlights are my own.
http://www.uncorrelated.com/2008/02/total_crap.html
For Mormons, Mr. O'Donnell's comments were a rallying cry. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are taught not to argue with outsiders over faith. But as criticism of their church rose to new heights during the campaign, they took on their antagonists like never before, in a wave of activism encouraged by church leadership.
This is complete, total, unmitigated crap. None of it ever happened. 99.9% of LDS church members never heard of Lawrence O'Donnell, don't know what he said and certainly didn't" rally. There have been no, none, zero statements by church leadership to church members about those statements or any others or any mention at all of the political race--as consistent with LDS church policy. There is no wave of activism other than the normal public relations activities and proselyting activities
Mormon leaders and church members say they were initially unprepared for the intensity of attacks, which many say were unprecedented in modern times. The attacks, they say, are a sign that their long struggle for wide acceptance in America is far from over, despite global church expansion and prosperity.
More total crap.
The LDS church has endured consistent, unremitting, prolonged, intense attacks and hatred since the church was organized in the early 19th century. Church members were chased out of Ohio, Missouri and Illinois at gunpoint. The federal government went to war against the church, occupied the Utah territory, imprisoned it leaders and threatened to confiscate its temples (can you imagine the U.S. military confiscating the Dome of the Rock mosque?). Anti-Mormon literature, films, tapes, websites, discussion lists, groups, blogs didn't suddenly spring up since the Romney campaign was announced--the mainstream media simply got around to noticing them.
This idea the the church is struggling for mainstream acceptance is part of the liberal media narrative about the church. The church itself is not looking at all to be part of the mainstream, it wants to be the mainstream. Does this surprise you? Isn't this the goal of any ideology? Don't socialists work to be the mainstream? Don't Evangelicals work to be the mainstream? The LDS church doesn't have 100,000 full time missionaries so that it can adapt to mainstream thought and practices, but rather to proselyte its own principles and culture.
It is precisely because it doesn't want to be part of the mainstream, that it generates such intense opposition from some very insecure Evangelicals. And why shouldn't they be? For a "wacky religion" they sure are kicking butt and taking names aren't they? Wealthy, successful, growing and accepted in the highest ranks of corporate America, politics and academia. I doubt the dynamic was any better represented than with Huckabee, the pinnacle of Evangelical social achievement, and Mitt Romney, one of many highly successful LDS business people and political figures.
Romney was in Huckabee's way. Mormons are in the way of Evangelical Protestantism. Its as simple as that, and its always been like that, and it will always be this way.
On the Internet, the Romney bid prompted an outpouring of broadsides against Mormonism from both the secular and religious worlds. Evangelical Christian speakers who consider it their mission to criticize Mormon beliefs lectured to church congregations across the country. Richard John Neuhaus, editor of the Catholic journal First Things, wrote that a Mormon presidency would threaten Christian faiths. Atheist author Christopher Hitchens called Mormonism "a mad cult" on Slate.com, and Bill Keller, a former convict who runs an online ministry in Florida, told a national radio audience that a vote for Mr. Romney was a vote for Satan."It seems like it's been open season on Mormons," says Marvin Perkins, a Los Angeles Mormon Church member who lectures about the history of blacks in the church.
Romney's campaign represented a proportionally greater threat and thus elicited a more panicked response, but the only thing about the song that changed was its volume. The reality is that Romney got 4,000,000 votes and McCain got 4,700,000, which suggests to me that Mormons are not the bogeymen the liberal media would like them to be.
There is no question that he scared a lot of the inbred chicken pluckers in the rural south, but they were just as suspicious of Mitt's yankee roots as they were his Mormonism. Other people's success scares these people, which is why they ran around in sheets and lynched black people after the civil war. Notably, the urban, better educated, upwardly mobile Evangelicals were happy to vote for Mitt--because they weren't threatened by him.
For the sake of fairness, Mormons have their inbred turkey-plucking contingent as well, but the church is working with those people. Pastor Huckabee just exploited their unchristian hatred.
Ultimately, the LDS church takes the attitude that people can say whatever they want as long as they spell the name right.
Larry Miller, owner of the Utah Jazz, local entertainment and automotive magnate, was interviewed by a local television station about his remembrances of the late LDS church president, Gordon Hinckley. Miller went to see Hinckley (before he was church president) for advice about purchasing the Jazz franchise. Apparently Hinckley's only comment was that "it would be good for the church". Some ten years later during the Bulls-Jazz championship, Miller got a call on his private cell phone from the triumvirate Mormons refer to as the First Presidency. The congratulated him on the 100+ million viewers that were watching the game, when Hinckley piped up, recalling their earlier conversation, and said, "see I told you..."
Miller went on to explain that what Hinckley saw in the prospect of bringing the Jazz to Utah was a unique opportunity for advertising impressions. Every time someone mentions the basketball team, its referred to as the UTAH Jazz, and people automatically associate Utah with Mormons. The Jazz have produced billions of ad impressions for the church, and Gordon saw, and pronounced it good.
The LDS church is a very sophisticated operation. Nine of the fifteen members of their highest leadership council have advanced degrees, two thirds of those are PhDs. Four are former University presidents. One has an MD and PhD. Brigham Young Universities MBA program and its accounting program are ranked among the very best in the nation. Mormons don't do "Bob Jones U." and they are very, very clear about their goals.
My point is, the LDS church absolutely loved the Romney campaign. They love Harry Reid for the same reason. The more people hear about the LDS church, the more curious they are going to get and ultimately they have enough confidence in their message that they welcome the scrutiny. What the Journal interprets as defensive measures is actually an effort to capitalize on all the attention.
