Romney and the Mormon Issue
Gilbert N. Kahn is a professor of Political Science at Kean University.
As if he did not have enough other problems, here comes the question of Romney’s faith, but from an unexpected quarter. Much has been suggested throughout the campaign that there were many Republican Tea-Partiers who were not enthused with Mitt Romney being a Mormon. Now in light of the recent controversy concerning Mormon Church members posthumously seeking to baptize the parents of Jewish Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, enter Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel into the political fray.
Wiesel disclosed that his own ancestors’ names were submitted for baptism. As he observed, Jews died and were murdered because they would not convert to Christianity and now people want to convert them posthumously. It is reported that he has called upon Romney to denounce this practice of the Church of Latter Day Saints to seek to baptize dead Jews including victims of the Holocaust. It also appears that as recently as 2007 Romney himself did not totally deny participating or sanctioning this practice.
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