“You see some [Protestant] ministers saying ugly things – it’s out there,” Foxman said.
The solution, suggested Thomas Terry, a non-Mormon who teaches communications at Idaho State University, a school with a substantial number of Mormon students, was more light. “We all believe in strange things,” he said, urging Romney to emulate Kennedy’s response to personal faith and public life.
Cragun, however, is not so sure Romney can do that without raising even more uncomfortable questions.
Kennedy, he noted, was raised as a Catholic, “but he was not orthodox and strict about it. When he came out and said, ‘I can govern without deferring to the pope,’ people could buy that. The same cannot be said by Mitt Romney – Mitt is an observant, devout, committed Mormon.”
(JTA)
