Reason #2,675,932 Why I Hate the Media

They make me defend Mitt Romney.

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.

SO WHAT?

LeMew calls this "a bullshit smear piece on Romney" and "straightforward religious bigotry," and I totally agree. Romney doesn't practice polygamy, nor does he support it; that his ancestry did has zero fucking relevance to his presidential campaign. Even as so far as one's personal life is relevant to a campaign, this "news" doesn't pass the smell test; as Romney's wife, Ann, to whom he's been married for 37 years, has pointed out, "he's only had one wife," unlike McCain, who's been married twice, or Giuliani, who's been married three times.

Look, I have no—none, zero, nil, zilch, nada, nought—love for Mitt Romney. If he were the last candidate on earth and I the last voter, I'd write in myself sooner than vote for him. But this kind of juvenile, he's-got-cooties, smear-by-association faux-journalism has to stop. It's pathetic; it lowers the public discourse; it insults us all. And it reinforces the privilege of one specific faith. The message, yet again, is that it's not just enough to be religious; you've got to be religious in a certain way—which is to say that you've got to preach that you're from an accepted Christian denomination, and practice intolerance of gays, uppity women, and people with "weirdo religions" (i.e. not privileged) or no religion at all. (See: Bush, George W.) That every last person reading this post will know precisely what I'm talking about (failing willful ignorance) is evidence of that very privilege.

And I would bet good money (and so would Richard Blair) that it was a person of that privileged faith who ghost-authored this hit piece—just some friendly rivalry between candidates, good men of faith all. A little thank-you note to Romney for his recent burst of religious intolerance: "We need to have a person of faith lead the country," said he, as if all "people of faith" are the same (ask Keith Ellison about that) and de facto superior to "people not of faith." It's always most helpful to the privileged lot when people from the weirdo religions denounce the faithless. Are you paying attention, Mr. Mormon Candidate?