Should "Gentiles" Worry about a Mormon President?
To Latter-day Saints, those not of the faith are called "Gentiles."
An old joke has it that Salt Lake City is the only place where a Jew is a Gentile.
But the Mormonism issue is not a joke, and deserves respectful airing -- not just evangelical sectarian ranting.
This is a letter submitted to The NYT, in response to David Reynolds's Jan. 26 "Why Evangelicals Don't Like Mormons," and also, David Brooks's Jan. 20 editorial, "The Wealth Issue," about Mitt Romney's money:
An old joke has it that Salt Lake City is the only place where a Jew is a Gentile.
But the Mormonism issue is not a joke, and deserves respectful airing -- not just evangelical sectarian ranting.
This is a letter submitted to The NYT, in response to David Reynolds's Jan. 26 "Why Evangelicals Don't Like Mormons," and also, David Brooks's Jan. 20 editorial, "The Wealth Issue," about Mitt Romney's money:
In the 1830's & 1840's, David Brooks says, locals feared Mormons not just "for their polygamy" but because "Mormons tended to outwork them." David S. Reynolds says essentially the same thing. But even more worrisome to Gentile settlers was Mormons' perceived corporate nature -- that Mormons voted as a bloc, and competed economically as a bloc.
As admirable a people as they may have been, Mormons' group power, reinforced by accumulated financial muscle through virtuous tithing, scared neighbors a lot.
Such anxiety was similar to the impetus behind David Wilmot's famous "Proviso" of that era: It expressed the fear that new Mexico Cession lands might be settled by slaveowners bringing gang labor with them to the Southwest -- "unfair competition" for individual farmers & townsfolk. Is there similar worry, however unjustified, about several Mormons working together at Bain Capital?
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