Quantcast


Advertisement

Jews and Mormons

Email | Print | Text - Text +

October 23, 2011 | 9:23 pm

Maureen Dowd attacks Mitt: Does a candidate’s underwear matter?

Posted by Mark Paredes

Photo

“When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.” — Jonathan Swift
——-
Judging from NYT columnist Maureen Dowd’s latest column (“Anne Frank, a Mormon?”), Joseph Smith was an Einstein. In her pathetic attack on Mitt Romney’s faith, Dowd includes anti-Mormon rants from two avowed atheists, Bill Maher and Christopher Hitchens, as she questions “magic underwear” and “baptizing dead people.” She also shamelessly invokes Anne Frank’s name in an attempt to stir up Jews against a Mormon candidate. Considering the source of this bigotry, I’ve never been prouder to be a Mormon.

Truth be told, the LDS Church got off lightly compared to Dowd’s own. In yet another ridiculous article, she once compared the Catholic Church to Saudi Arabia, a place where “women’s rights were strangled…[in] an inbred and autocratic state.” Dowd does not take her own faith seriously, as she is pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, and disagrees with official Catholic teachings on many other issues (e.g., birth control, ordination of women). It’s not hard to see why she has a problem with a candidate, especially a conservative one, who accepts his faith’s teachings and lives by them. Which candidate would the pope prefer, a faithful Mormon or an unfaithful Catholic? I think even Maureen Dowd knows the answer to that one.

I searched in vain for a Dowd hit piece on LDS Christianity when Harry Reid became the Senate Majority Leader, one of the most powerful positions on Capitol Hill. I guess Reid’s support for liberal positions that are clearly contrary to Mormon teachings (e.g., support for Planned Parenthood abortion funding and the Nevada gambling industry) must have caused her to ignore what kind of underwear he was wearing. What is unforgivable to Dowd is not where Mitt goes to church on Sundays, but the fact that he professes fealty to the principles of his faith, which happen to coincide in most cases with those teachings of the Catholic Church that Dowd rejects. Her appeal to arguments made by two anti-religion atheists to make her case shows just how flimsy it is. I’m prepared to listen to critiques of my faith from people like Richard Mouw who take their faith seriously, but I find it hard to listen to people who hate religion or who are unfaithful to their own faith tradition.

Dowd is either ill-informed or dishonest when she implies in the headline and the article that Mormons are converting the dead to their faith. I have blogged twice on this topic, and don’t feel a need to say much more. However, one bedrock LDS belief bears repeating: If Anne Frank does become a Mormon in the next life, it’s because she will have chosen to be one, not because anyone on earth has the power to force her to join the church. Any assertion to the contrary is false.

It’s not Mitt’s fault that Dowd has replaced Catholic beliefs with liberal ones and decided to attack her church at every turn. It’s not his fault that he’s a happily-married, faithful husband and father who belongs to a family-centered church, while she has ignored her church’s teachings and at 59 has yet to find a man who wants to marry her. In a well-known Book of Mormon story, men and women who are doing their best to stay faithful to God’s commandments are subjected to the “mocking” and “scoffing” of well-dressed, prideful people in a “great and spacious building.” It’s obvious to Mormons to which group Maureen Dowd belongs.
 
Historically, Jews and Mormons have looked to a candidate’s values, not his theology, when voting. Given the small size of our communities, that’s almost a necessity. What kind of underwear Mitt wears is as relevant to his political philosophy as an Orthodox Jewish candidate’s tallit is to his. In this election season, surely we can come up with more relevant criteria with which to evaluate candidates.
 

     

Mark Paredes is a member of the Jewish Relations Committee of the LDS Church's Southern California Public Affairs Council. You can contact Mark at deverareligione@yahoo.com and follow him on Twitter @jewsandmormons.

13 Comments — Leave your comment

Share this post: del.icio.us Favicondel.icio.us Digg FaviconDigg Facebook FaviconFacebook Google FaviconGoogle Reddit FaviconReddit StumbleUpon FaviconStumbleUpon Technorati FaviconTechnorati YahooMyWeb FaviconYahooMyWeb

COMMENTS

We welcome your feedback. Comments may not exceed 700 characters.

Privacy Policy

Your information will not be shared or sold without your consent. Get all the details.

Terms of Service

JewishJournal.com has rules for its commenting community.Get all the details.

Marry Dowd won’t ridicule Jewish religious clothing because of past persecution and she won’t do the same with Muslims because they are a very large group.

Comment by Stevo on 10/24/11 at 8:25 am

She is not worth a comment, but I will for the article. People have to understand that we are a people that reject paid priests. All men are priests and women share on that priesthood. We are not going to parade “the cloth” on the outside like paid priest do. I wonder how she would sound if making fun of Catholic fathers in “dresses” or the colorful robes of the Baptists. Many “Christians” think it is fair to talk about something Mormons consider sacred in a mocking way but I wonder how they would feel if she were making fun of symbols their priests use on the outside. Play fair!

Comment by Mr. Bueno on 10/24/11 at 9:01 am

I hereby make a sincere appear for fairness, mutual respect, and understanding. 
For hundreds of years, Western civilization engaged in destructive and bloody religious wars and “Crusades,”  zealously killing one another in the name of Christ.  England, Germany, France and Spain participated in this mutual “holy” slaughter.  It was common practice to label your religious opponent as “heretic” and then either kill him or drive him out.
Today in the United States, the practice seems to be to define other religions as “cults” and then isolate their members from participation in society and especially in government.
Let’s move past hatred and prejudice in the name of religion!

Comment by George King on 10/24/11 at 10:46 am

Mureen Dowd is stupid, ill informed and dishonest.  She should know what she is talking about before she opens her fat mouth

Comment by Darryl Stevens on 10/24/11 at 2:02 pm

If every member of the church, were to ask Heavenly Father to soften the heart of His daughter Maureen, to enable a seed to be planted into her by a faithful member of His Beloved Sons Church, so with the many prayers from many of His faithful children to allow this seed to break free from it’s hard outer shell and to sprout and develop into a powerful belief in having the Holy Ghost edify her that she then will realize the restored gospel is true. We should never forget she is one of Heavenly Fathers daughters and He so desperately wants her and many of His children to return home to Him in His kingdom, so He and His Beloved Son will receive great joy and happiness in their return.

Comment by Graham Chesworth on 10/24/11 at 5:34 pm

Maureen Dowd is to Catholicism as Glenn Beck is to Mormonism.

Comment by Bill Sherwood on 10/24/11 at 5:41 pm

Mark - I normally respect your writing but this one is far too reactionary.
You can criticise the arguments but when you lower yourself to “and at 59 has yet to find a man who wants to marry her.” then you know you have gotten too emotionally involved in the argument.
I read Dowd’s piece and thought it intellectually dishonest but your defence of Mitt makes some of the same ad hominen mistakes Dowd does.

Comment by John on 10/24/11 at 7:18 pm

Dear John:

Thanks for your comments. The reference to Dowd’s marriage status was for people who follow her columns, and I’ve received several e-mails from readers who “got” it. FYI, she has written a book (“Are Men Necessary?”) and several columns over the years lamenting the fact that women who use their “critical faculties” like her are unable to snag a man. It is she, not I, who has made this an issue in her public life. I’m sure she’s still bitter that Michael Douglas left her and wound up with Catherine Zeta Jones. Morevoer, she has directed over-the-top vitriol at Sarah Palin, who happens to be a happily-married mother. Now it’s happily-married Mitt Romney’s turn.

Comment by Mark Paredes on 10/24/11 at 8:47 pm

It’s obvious that Dowd can’t write objectively about religion, single men, or happily-married conservatives. As a man who is currently dating a cosmopolitan, multilingual European beauty who is undoubtedly sharper than Dowd, I think she is deluding herself if she thinks that intelligent women can’t land a man. I’m sorry that you didn’t get the reference, but if Maureen can dish it out, she’s going to have to take it as well.

Comment by Mark Paredes on 10/24/11 at 8:48 pm

Amen Mark and Bravo!  Given Ms Dowd’s acidic personality it is no wonder that men shy away from her, regardless of their intelligence.  Personally, I think the fact that they do not want to persue a relationship with her only serves to deomonstrate how intelligent they are.  I wish your article could be published in the NYT.  It certainly makes a great deal more sense than hers does.

Comment by George G. King on 10/24/11 at 9:57 pm

One more thought:  Actually it’s not Ms. Dowd who is intelligent.  It’s the men who avoid her who are.

Comment by George G. King on 10/24/11 at 10:11 pm

Maureen Dowd has to be one of the most hateful “journalists” alive.  If a conservative ranted on against a religion or any other group of people like she does they would be branded a “racist” or “bigot”, or “hate monger” or any other slur against that conservative. Maureen Dowd is all of these things.  I think she should be ignored and treated like the jerk she is.

Comment by REB on 11/17/11 at 10:44 am

I tend to agree with you.  However, the Times publishes her comments and employs her, thus giving her credence.

Comment by George G. King on 11/17/11 at 11:42 am

Post a Comment

Name:  
Email:  

Type the word you see below:

Comment:


About this Blog

Blog Home
About the Blogger(s)
Contact

RSS


Blog Archive






Newspaper

Serving a community of 600,000, The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles is the largest Jewish weekly outside New York City. Our award-winning paper reaches over 150,000 educated, involved and affluent readers each week. Subscribe here.

© Copyright 2012 Tribe Media Corp.
All rights reserved. JewishJournal.com is hosted by Nexcess.net. Homepage design by Koret Communications.
Widgets by Mijits. Site construction by Hop Studios.

counter fake hit page