the Mittmeister missteps
WASHINGTON, December 10, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In an interview with CBS News’ Katie Couric last week, GOP Presidential contender Mitt Romney was asked “What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made?” Interestingly, he responded that his practice of the popular stand on abortion - ‘personally opposed, but . . .’ was his biggest mistake. However, in the same interview he noted he still supports destructive research on embryonic stage humans.
“I think from the political perspective, the biggest mistake I made was believing that my personal disagreement with abortion and my view that abortion was wrong, that somehow I could accommodate my personal view that abortion was wrong with a public view that other people should be able to make up their own mind, and the government wouldn’t play a role,” Romney replied.
After some time Couric pursued the matter further asking, “You said you have personal views toward abortion but felt that in the public arena, another position could exist. What is wrong with that? What’s wrong with having a personal view and feeling that it’s the right of individuals to make these difficult choices?”
Romney replied: “Well, what I recognized is that in a civilized society that there has to be a respect for the sanctity of life - that if you put that aside, if you say, “We’re gonna start creating life and then destroying it,” you’re, in effect, playing God. And I think a civilized society has certain rules of conduct that it live by and one of those is to respect the sanctity of life. Another is respect in the sanctity of marriage. And…so when…I was faced with not a theoretical question of, “What do you think about abortion?” but, instead, the reality of being a governor who would sign a bill that would create life and destroy it-this was an embryonic cloning bill–I said, “I simply cannot become party to something where life would be created and then destroyed.” And that made the decision for me that it was impossible to have a strong position personally opposing abortion and, at the same time, to say that we’re going to have laws which permitted and permit the destruction of life throughout our society.”
However in what would be seen by many as a contradiction, Romney told Couric he supported embryonic stem cell research.
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Mitt! You were doing so well…
(AP) Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, asks in an upcoming article, “Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?”
The article, to be published in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, says Huckabee asked the question after saying he believes Mormonism is a religion but doesn’t know much about it. His rival Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, is a member of the Mormon church, which is known officially as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The authoritative Encyclopedia of Mormonism, published in 1992, does not refer to Jesus and Satan as brothers. It speaks of Jesus as the son of God and of Satan as a fallen angel, which is a Biblical account.
A spokeswoman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Huckabee’s question is usually raised by those who wish to smear the Mormon faith rather than clarify doctrine.
“We believe, as other Christians believe and as Paul wrote, that God is the father of all,” said the spokeswoman, Kim Farah. “That means that all beings were created by God and are his spirit children. Christ, on the other hand, was the only begotten in the flesh and we worship him as the son of God and the savior of mankind. Satan is the exact opposite of who Christ is and what he stands for.”
Romney spokesman Kevin Madden said Romney will not debate candidates on their faith or question their faith.
“For those who want to know how Governor Romney’s faith informs his values, they can look at how he lives his life and how he has raised his family,” Madden said.
Earlier this month in Iowa, Huckabee wouldn’t say whether he thought Mormonism _ rival Romney’s religion _ was a cult.
“I’m just not going to go off into evaluating other people’s doctrines and faiths. I think that is absolutely not a role for a president,” the former Arkansas governor said.
While he said he respects “anybody who practices his faith,” Huckabee said that what other people believe _ he named Republican rivals Romney, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton _ “is theirs to explain, not mine, and I’m not going to.”
He also resisted wading into theology when pressed to explain why some evangelicals don’t view the Mormon faith as a Christian denomination.
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I warned you that this was going to happen…better now than later.
