Romney's Mormonism and You: It Doesn't Matter! Stop the Attacks!

SALT LAKE CITY - While Mitt Romney condemns polygamy and its prior practice by his Mormon church, the Republican presidential candidate's great-grandfather had five wives and at least one of his great-great grandfathers had 12.

Stop the presses! This is news that will surely affect the country in 2008! Does this mean that Mitt Romney is a flip-flopper against his whole family? We must know!

Polygamy was not just a historical footnote, but a prominent element in the family tree of the former Massachusetts governor now seeking to become the first Mormon president.

In yet another case of journalists having a severe case of boredom (or having to put something in for the deadline) and how ridiculous this never-ending presidential campaign has become, this story, written by the Associated Press and carried by Yahoo! News, will undoubtedly become fodder for the orgy of Mormon-bashing surrounding former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's (R) run for President.

As if the piles of mud flown in all directions weren't bad enough during the middle of a campaign season (or a tool of the trade in the campaign industry), this report is just the latest example of reporters scrambling for something, anything, that will generate buzz and contribute to this never-ending campaign.

Inexcusably, in this case, the drive to get a story resulted in a patently unfair attack on Romney.

The article then proceeds to divulge the marriages of Romney's ancestors since the founding of the Mormon church in 1830. Essentially, this is a scorecard of Romney's family chronicling which of his direct ancestors, back to his great-great-grandfather, were polygamists and those who were not.

B. Carmon Hardy, a polygamy expert and retired history professor at California State University-Fullerton, said polygamy was "a very important part of Miles Park Romney's family."

Hardy added: "Now, very gradually, as you moved farther away from it, it became less a part of it. But during the time of Miles Park Romney, it was an essential principle of the Romney family life."

One question: Why the hell does this matter?

The "Romney family life" that held polygamy as an "essential principle" vanished decades before Mitt Romney was even born.

Other Mormons have run for the White House, including Romney's father in 1968 and Sen. Orrin Hatch (news, bio, voting record), R-Utah, in 2000. But Mitt Romney's stature as a leading 2008 contender has renewed questions about his faith and its doctrines.

Oh, right, the never-ending obsession about a candidate's spiritual life and the quest to damn Romney for the sins of his ancestors and others.

If these insinuations about Romney were not enough, the story provides two more slaps to Romney's face. First is the mention of the HBO television series, "Big Love," that follows the life of a Mormon with three wives. Second is the mention of Warren Jeffs, the leader of a breakaway/rogue "Mormon fundamentalist" group that practices polygamy and is facing felony charges for sex crimes involving underage marriages and all sorts of sexual crimes against minors.

Both items were linked to Romney in that "polygamy remains a part of current events."

Romney's great-grandmother, Hannah Hood Hill, was the daughter of polygamists. She wrote vividly in her autobiography about how she "used to walk the floor and shed tears of sorrow" over her own husband's multiple marriages.

Polygamy has already done great damage to at least one member of Romney's family. Now, with polygamy being a thing of the distant past in the family, the subject is now used as a blunt object to attack Mitt Romney today.

It is very easy to condemn the authors of this report, Jennifer Dobner and Glen Johnson. However, given the ravenous hunger for anything remotely related to the presidential campaign, there would have been other reporters writing this same story.

Just as it is wrong to condemn a person of a faith because of the actions of the few or the actions of days long past, it is just as wrong to condemn Mitt Romney for the actions of Mormons from another era or the actions of an outlaw when it is clear that he rejects those practices.

Exploring this area in the name of reporting and raising questions on Romney's faith only gives another opportunity for those that wish to bash Mormons to do so with abandon. If it were ever a question that Americans just had to ask, Romney has made it clear that he is no part of those activities and crimes.

There are plenty of reasons to foist Romney into the spotlight and have him try to answer for his positions, especially when it seems that he has taken some positions for political expediency and not because of his personal positions or of a genuine change of mind. That is all fair game. But to drag Romney through the mud on something such as this is wrong. It's just plain and simply wrong.