As I said, I grew up in the same area as Santorum. Back then (in the dark ages) it was Catholics and Southern Baptists who were considered weird and lesser in the eyes of good mainline Protestants. I was raised a Presbyterian. After college and marriage, I was unaffiliated with any church, as they all seemed wrong and had to do more with the rules of men than of any true faith in God or Christ. I had spent a good many years in studying religious history and researching the God concept. I later decided that the LDS church had it as right as it was going to get, short of converting to Judiasm.

Did you read the false Christ thing from an influential Evangelical? B/c I have not heard anything like that from anyone who has a significant following.

If we disagree, where do we disagree? Is it your contention that conservative Evangelicals are going to choose Barack over Mitt? are going to choose Rev. Wright and “Goddamn America”? are going to choose Euro Socialism over capitalism? I don’t think you think that. I think you get pissed off over anecdotal evidence of random non influential Evangelicals who spout off on the internet. At least, that is my suspicion. I suspect you and I are relatively sympatico. Random foolish spouter offers kinda piss me off, also.

I have absolutely nothing against Evangelicals or anyone else who lives a good life. I get out of sorts, not with American religions, but with any religion based on the Council of Nicene, which came 300+ years after Christ and was a bunch of old men deciding how the rest of humanity should worship Christ. I think it is all BS. I much prefer to go back to the early 1st century and to the teachings of the Jews of Jesus time and understanding. But that is just me.

Anyway, Mormons are generally decent people, they learn self reliance in the church, they encourage hard work, and they strive for sobriety. Romney’s religion is not an issue for me, and I wish all conservatives felt the same.

I do not remember Santorum playing a religion card vis a vis LDS vs Catholics. I do remember Santorum leaping into the fray on numerous social issues. However, Santorum’s leaps were, possibly, consistently in alignment with LDS beliefs vis a vis those very same social issues.

Re your remarks which indicate that you are, to some extent, fed up with a number of Evangelical Christians, I invite you to factor in these points of view:

– given the large numbers of Evangelicals in America: as a group, we could be, were we so inclined, much bigger ass@#$%&^ than we already are. We’ve got numbers, funding, and political power. If we wanted, we could ramp up the oppressive aspects of our behavior.

– given our large numbers, OF COURSE there will be large numbers of us who are less graceful human beings than we could be.

– Jesus said: “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” Christian pastors consistently say that those of us who are attracted to Christianity are those of us who realize just how depraved and in need we are. When Pastors look upon their congregations, they see very flawed and very humanly fallible persons. We in the congregation came to Christianity for a reason. We were not wonderful persons, and still are not wonderful persons. So, we are, from time to time, going to do some unwonderful things. B/c that is who we are.

After the drop outs of Bachmann, Perry, and Cain, and after Gringrich victory in South Carolina, a group of influential Evangelical leaders met in Texas, and announced their support of Santorum. But, they made no mention of religion or LDS as a factor in their support of Santorum. It was an issues thing.

So, on a national level, influential conservative Evangelicals ARE going to shut up and vote for Romney; already have shut up, already either explicitly or implicitly support Romney. Your desire will come true. If you hear an influential Evangelical criticizing LDS as a reason to oppose Romney, that Evangelical is a Democrat.

I hope you don’t think that I think all Evangelicals are bigots. I most certainly do not. But, I do think that there are many Evangelical pastors who preach what I would call bigotry and many who don’t question what they are being taught because it comes from the pulpit. LDS have been one of THE most persecuted groups in America, if you look at their history.

It was even weirder to me about Santorum as I grew up in the same area as he did and it was Catholics who were considered heathens and idol worshipers and who often faced discrimination. For him to play the religion card with Romney was bigotry, IMHO. It just made no sense to me at all.