I'm so glad to know that Mitt is taking a brave, principled stand regarding the word "God" on pennies.
What would a GOP campaign be without some good old-fashioned religious demagoguery? It simply isn't done, my dear!
Unfortunately for Mitt, there is some evidence to suggest that one of the most influential members of his Church did not intend for religion to be used as a political weapon as Mitt is doing now.
In a letter dated July 20, 1849, Brigham Young wrote:
Never, no never, no never drag Priesthood into a political Gentile warfare. Let no religious test be required, or the holy influence and power of the Priesthood be brought to bear in any political question. If the intrinsic merits of all such matters will not furnish argument sufficient — for all necessary purposes, then let them go, for it is better that the whole political fabric, corrupt as we know it to be, should totter and go to destruction, than for one Saint to be offended.
And as further later explained by
Louis C. Midgley, a professor at Brigham Young University:
The Lord has warned the Saints to avoid secret combinations...we are not told to start our own secret combination to counter the evils we see or think we see in the world. We are not to follow the pattern set by this world; our politics should be of an entirely different kind; our Kingdom is not of this world. We are not commissioned to win this world for the Lord by joining some seedy and unseemly political mass movement like that offered by the New Left or the Radical Right. No conspiracy, not even a Skousen-type Super-Conspiracy, can possibly frustrate the Kingdom of God; the Saints need not fear the corruption of this world if they keep their eyes and hearts on the Master.
I'm reading that as a call for separation of church and state. God is really kind of above the petty politics of this world. I agree with that. I think God has better ways to spend his time. Curious as to what Mitt's thoughts are on the words of Brigham Young.