Liberal Media starting to exacerbate Religious divide among Conservatives

Here is yet another example of how the left is going to make Mormonism an issue in the presidential race, courtesy of Tim Murphy at Mother Jones. They will attempt to sow division among Republican voters who have no problem with Romney's religion and evangelicals who do. All the while, they will seek to be perceived as being above the fray. In Alinsky-speak, that's called 'rubbing raw the sores of discontent' from a bit of a distance.

Via Mother Jones:

It hasn't been pretty—often, it's been quite ugly—but after racking up three more primary wins in Wisconsin, Maryland, and Washington, DC, on Tuesday, Mitt Romney has almost guaranteed that he will become the first Mormon presidential nominee from a major party. Now the dozens of evangelical pastors across the country who have criticized the former Massachusetts governor's Mormon faith are faced with an awkward (if not painful) choice: Stand their ground against a faith they believe is a "cult"—or cast their lot with the lesser of two evils.

The Mormon issue has been dogging Romney since he began his first presidential race five years ago. According to a Gallup poll, 18 percent of Republicans say they wouldn't vote for a Mormon for president—and it's not a coincidence that throughout the 2012 contest, Romney's success has been inversely proportional to the percentage of evangelicals voting in a given state. (There's even a website, Evangelicals for Mitt, devoted to answering the question, "How Can I Vote For a Mormon?") 

But anti-Mormon opposition to Romney has never been uniform, which is why there's no reason to assume it will all vanish before November. This religious-based antipathy falls into several distinct categories. There are conservative Christian pastors who would prefer a candidate who embraces their worldview entirely but will swallow their misgivings if necessary to support ABO (Anyone But Obama). There are black ministers who would sooner stay home than support someone who belongs to a "racist religion." And there are the die-hard anti-Mormons, folks who believe a Mormon president would doom a new generation of Americans to hell. In other words, it's complicated.

Ah, it's complicated. Does anyone honestly believe that the left wing media, which supports Obama, is not going to jump on any opportunity to exacerbate this "complicated situation"? Isn't that what Murphy is doing here while attempting to portray objectivity?

Murphy then invokes the name of Robert Jeffress, who was at the center of controversy last year, when he referred to Mormonism as a cult:

Like Robert Jeffress, the Dallas pastor who urged conservative attendees of the Values Voters Summit last October to vote for a "committed follower of Christ," Scarborough's issue with Mormonism is doctrinal in nature—if he thought Mormonism were a legitimate creed, he would be a Mormon. After supporting Santorum (who is Catholic) during the GOP primary, he's now resigned to his fate as a likely Mormon backer. "I think Mormonism is still an issue that makes a lot of evangelicals swallow very hard," he says. "The only thing that makes them swallow harder is the thought of Barack Obama being president four more years."

That isn't to say he's totally sold on Romney, a man he calls "all things to all men." "If he does [win], I will support him, I will encourage others of like mind to do the same," he says. "But we all struggle with Mormonism, which, religiously, we have some real issues with."

Check out what Murphy does here:

Bill Keller, a Florida-based internet evangelist who sends his devotional out each morning to some 2.4 million subscribers, is not as ecumenical. Keller became the godfather of sorts for the evangelicals against Romney movement in 2007, when he wrote that a vote for Mitt was "a vote for Satan." That's a hard position to reverse.

Murphy is making it very clear here that the consequence of Keller changing his mind is just the kind of hypocrisy he warns against as a pastor.

Murphy then cites the views of a black conservative pastor in Pompano Beach, FL.

Then there's O'Neal Dozier, a black Republican pastor from Orlando—and a Santorum supporter—who convened a press conference in January to announce his opposition to the Mormon front-runner. He hasn't softened his stance over the ensuing three months and is promising to take his fight all the way to November if he has to.

"A nomination of Mitt Romney will destroy the racial divide in this country even more than it has already been done by Obama," Dozier says. "It will destroy the racial divide. Why? Here's the reason why: Mitt Romney's faith is a racist faith. The Mormon faith is a racist faith. The mere fact of his nomination would substantiate and validate in the minds of black people that the Republican Party is racist."

Again, this has been my point. The liberal media will seek to sow this kind of division in a major way between now and November and it will divide the Republican Party.

Shame, shame, shame on those in the establishment who didn't see this coming.

Read it all.