Yes, he can. Congress hasn’t formally declared war on anyone since 1941, but Presidents have ordered military action of one sort or another pretty much every year since.
Shocking though this revelation may be to you, all men are just one man.
I think it’s acceptable to say this is an example of discrimination, if not bigotry, if a Republican’s refusal to vote for an atheist counts. Most Republicans probably think atheists have positions they fundamentally disagree with, such as enforced abortions and sterilisation (because atheist = evilutionist = eugenicist = Social Darwinist), promiscuous sex, preferably in public and a slippery slope leading to their unemployed children smoking weed and marrying their dogs while Muslims take over America due to the lack of people willing to defend their country.
Except there are a lot of Mormons who are not politically conservative. Similarly there are Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists who despite their denomination’s views often advocated socially liberal politics.
How many of these Democrats who said “no” would be willing to vote for JFK or Bill Clinton? How many of these Republicans who said “no” would be willing to vote for Newt Gingrich?
A lot of these people may take the Book of Mormon non-literally and symbolically as many Jews or liberal Christians do. Plus we are not voting for the President of the Archeologist Association we are voting for President of the United States.
And what about the Catholic Church with its history of religious persecutions such as the Albigensian Crusade or the Inquisition? And Governor Romney’s father had a strong record on civil rights. Would you then oppose Harry Reid’s candidacy?
While this is a bit OT, I’m not sure how “stopping Iran from getting nukes” is comparable to “let’s conquer the whole planet!”. And I don’t support an Iranian war BTW.
Except most religions in America and elsewhere do not advocate that or something else like that. Isn’t it bigotry for example to oppose a Muslim candidate because its founder was arguably a pedophile (one of his brides was a child) and almost certainly was a military conqueror. And would it be bigotry if someone was willing to vote for someone who was homosexual but not for someone who engaged in homosexual sex?
I’m not particularly proud of that. But if in people’s minds a Mormon is identified with Romney than even more people seem to identify an atheist with Jacobinism or Communism. I suspect a lot of conservatives would vote for someone like Ayn Rand (even if they thought he or she was too socially liberal).
Qin Shi Huangdi, there aren’t actually that all-fired many Mormons who aren’t distinctly conservative. The proportion of people who call themselves Evangelicals whose political positions are liberal is distinctly larger than the proportion of people who call themselves Mormons whose political positions are liberal. The term “Evangelical” has quite a different use than the term “Mormon.” It’s not necessary to be a member of a particular denomination to call oneself an Evangelical. One can be a member of a mainstream Protestant church, for instance. There are political/religious organizations made up entirely of people who call themselves Evangelicals and who on economic matters are very liberal. Yes, most Americans who call themselves Evangelicals are political conservatives, but quite a few aren’t.
On the other hand, nearly everyone who calls themself a Mormon is a member of the Latter Day Saints church (or, in a small proportion of cases, an off-shoot which is equally conservative), although they may not often attend church. To publicly take a liberal position would at least get some disapproval from most other Mormons. The hierachy of the church is very conservative on most political issues.
In the U.S. at least, most people who call themselves Roman Catholics are not conservatives at all. They are no more conservative on most political issues than the average mainstream Protestant and only slightly more conservative than most people who don’t belong to or identify with any church. They aren’t even particularly conservative on issues that the Catholic hierarchy makes a big deal about. (And, let me note, papal statements tend to be more liberal on economic issues than the average American is.) On typical political polls in the U.S., people who call themselves Catholic are no more conservative on birth control and only a little more conservative on abortion than the average American.
Apparently there aren’t enough non-conservative Mormons to have any influence on the laws of Utah. Sure there may be some liberal Mormons, but they know enough to remain silent.
