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One Sunday in 1982, she recalled, Romney, then a young bishop, and an assistant showed up at her doorstep inviting her to her excommunication trial.
"I was dumbfounded," Gerson said. "I said to him, 'I have already quit -- you can't fire me.'" Gerson said she had never before met Romney, and he did not try to engage her in conversation or discover her story.
"There was no curiosity on his part about who I was and what this was about," Gerson said.
Typically, excommunication in the Mormon Church is rare and reserved for someone who fundamentally violates church tenets. Gerson, a Democrat, said her mother interceded with a church authority in Utah, and she does not know if the trial went forward.
A 1994 article in the Boston Phoenix told the story of an anonymous woman (who has since been identified) who wrote an article in a feminist Mormon magazine claiming Romney, as bishop, discouraged her from having an abortion even though her health was at stake. Romney later said he could not remember the incident.
1984: Romney urged church member and divorcee Peggie Hayes to give up her newborn son for adoption, in keeping with church policy against children being raised by single mothers.
“He told me he was a representative of the church and by refusing I was failing to comply with the church’s wishes and I could be excommunicated,” Hayes told the Boston Globe during the ’94 campaign, adding:
“He was saying that because [my son] Dane didn’t have a Mormon father in the home and because of the circumstances of his birth — being born to a single mother — then the expectation of the church was that I give him up for adoption to the church agency so he could be raised by a Mormon couple in good standing.”
In a statement at the time, Romney defended his advice to Hayes to give up her son — in keeping with the official church policy that single mothers “should be encouraged to place the child for adoption, preferably through LDS social services” — but denied ever threatening Hayes with excommunication. Hayes ultimately kept her son and left the church.
Another area where Romney was criticized was his attitude toward homosexuality. In July 1994, during Romney's U.S. Senate campaign, The Boston Globe published a story saying that Romney, in a speech to a congregation of single Mormons, said he found homosexuality "perverse and reprehensible." The story cited one named and three unnamed sources.
Romney denied the comments. "I specifically said they should avoid homosexuality and they should avoid heterosexual relations outside of marriage," Romney told the Globe then. "I did not use the words perverse or perversion. I just said it was wrong. ... That is what my church believes."
For example, male church leaders typically went on monthly visits to speak at other congregations. The women suggested that female leaders could do the same.
"Mitt actually said yes, I don't see why not," Sievers recalled. "He was thoughtful about what's practice and doctrine, what do I have authority to change. ... I felt like Mitt cared more about the congregation than he did his potential career in the church."
Former parishioners say Romney organized efforts to help needy families. In one instance, documented in "The Real Romney," a book by Boston Globe reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman, two boys from the church were paralyzed in an accident. Romney visited the family on Christmas Eve and gave the boys a stereo system and VCR. He offered to pay for the boys' college tuitions, and continued to help the family for years.
Sievers' first interaction with Romney was when a member of the congregation owed her money. Romney helped her get the money back -- and offered to give her money himself.
Originally posted by CynicalDrivel
reply to post by TheLieWeLive
That same tree was barked up for Catholics. Nearly cost them the right to vote, in this country. History, just keeps repeating itself.
Also I wouldn't worry about the Mormon Church Prophet calling up Mitt and telling him what to do the church doesn't get mixed up in politics
Originally posted by OutKast Searcher
reply to post by Thunderheart
Also I wouldn't worry about the Mormon Church Prophet calling up Mitt and telling him what to do the church doesn't get mixed up in politics
Wasn't it the LDS Church that poured money into the Prop 8 vote in California???
I don't think you can really say they don't get involved in politics.
Originally posted by OutKast Searcher
Originally posted by CynicalDrivel
reply to post by TheLieWeLive
That same tree was barked up for Catholics. Nearly cost them the right to vote, in this country. History, just keeps repeating itself.
What tree was barked up???
I'm not sure what you think is going on, but I would be curious to know.
Wiki.
In the aftermath of the Reformation it was common in European countries for people of disfavored religious denominations to be denied civil and political rights, often including the right to vote, to stand for election or to sit in parliament. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, Roman Catholics were denied the right to vote from 1728 to 1793, and the right to sit in parliament until 1829. The anti-Catholic policy was justified on the grounds that the loyalty of Catholics supposedly lay with the Pope rather than the national monarch.
In England and Ireland, several Acts practically disenfranchised non-Anglicans or non-Protestants by imposing an oath before admission to vote or to run for office. The 1672 and 1678 Test Acts forbade non-Anglicans to hold public offices, the 1727 Disenfranchising Act took away Catholics' (Papists') voting rights in Ireland, which were restored only in 1788. Jews could not even be naturalized. An attempt was made to change this situation, but the Jewish Naturalization Act 1753 provoked such reactions that it was repealed the next year. Nonconformists (Methodists and Presbyterians) were only allowed to run for elections to the British House of Commons in 1828, Catholics in 1829 (following the Catholic Relief Act 1829), and Jews in 1858 (with the Emancipation of the Jews in England). Benjamin Disraeli could only begin his political career in 1837 because he had been converted to Anglicanism at the age of 12.
In several states in the U.S. after the Declaration of Independence, Jews, Quakers or Catholics were denied voting rights and/or forbidden to run for office.[9] The Delaware Constitution of 1776 stated that "Every person who shall be chosen a member of either house, or appointed to any office or place of trust, before taking his seat, or entering upon the execution of his office, shall (…) also make and subscribe the following declaration, to wit: I, A B. do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration.".[10] This was repealed by article I, section 2 of the 1792 Constitution: "No religious test shall be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, under this State.".[11] The 1778 Constitution of the State of South Carolina stated that "No person shall be eligible to sit in the house of representatives unless he be of the Protestant religion",[12] the 1777 Constitution of the State of Georgia (art. VI) that "The representatives shall be chosen out of the residents in each county (…) and they shall be of the Protestent (sic) religion".[13] In Maryland, voting rights and eligibility were extended to Jews in 1828.[14]
Originally posted by CynicalDrivel
Kennedy was the 1st and only Catholic president for a reason.
Originally posted by OutKast Searcher
reply to post by Thunderheart
I do understand it isn't a paid position...but it is still considered a leadership position from what I understand. And the President of the stake is definately a leadership position.