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Hot off the presses: Yahoo has posted an AP story about a Christmas card sent out to South Carolinians that says:

We wish you and your family a happy holiday season and a joyful New Year.

–The Romney Family

Sounds okay so far, right?  Except the back side of the card has a picture of the Boston Massachusetts temple, and underneath it says, “Paid for by the Boston Massachusetts Temple.”

What on earth is the Boston Massachusett’s temple doing, sending out Christmas cards on behalf of a political candidate??!  Well, they’re not, as it turns out.  The Boston Temple President Ken Hutchins said today that he first heard about the mailing was Friday (12-28-07) via a woman  in Charleston.

That’s awfully good to hear, considering the fact that as a non-profit organization, the LDS Church cannot in any way, shape, or form, endorse or help elect a candidate.  Even if the LDS Church was dying to do so (which I sincerely doubt is true, but for argument’s sake let’s say the leadership does want to) they simply cannot, because that would mean an end to the non-profit status of the Church, which would be a HUGE deal, to say the least.  James Dobson understands this, because every time he talks about a political candidate, he always prefaces his comments by saying that they are his own thoughts, and that the organization that he heads (Focus on the Family) does not have a stance on any candidate one way or the other.  To see this in action, check out this article where Dobson says John McCain is a huge no-no, but also clearly says this opinion is his own.

But the LDS Church doesn’t even go that far.  You’ll never hear President Gordon B. Hinckley stand up and say, “I believe Mitt Romney [or any other candidate] is the best person running for president, and I wholeheartedly endorse his candidacy.  I am doing this as a person, and not as a representative of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, however.  The LDS Church is neutral on this subject.”  Never, never, never.  You’ll see the moon crash into the earth and all life end before you see the president of the Church get involved with endorsing and/or helping a candidate get elected.  For more info, check out another article I have written on this subject.

So if the LDS Church did not send out this card, and in fact would not ever do something like this, then who did it and why?  Before we even get to what else the card says, you can make a guess that the group (or person) behind this card is no friend of Romney’s.  One of the biggest fears that people have had is that the LDS Church is going to use Romney being in the White House as a way of controlling the government and the people of the United States.  So having a temple send out cards on behalf of Mitt Romney simply reinforces those fears.  This by itself is a negative thing.

And sure enough, the message of the card is not a positive one.  It quotes a statement by Orson Pratt about polygamy, which I need to investigate to find out if he actually said it or not.  It also quotes a scripture from the Book of Mormon that talks about Mary (the mother of Jesus).  When I first read the scripture, I was confused why they would put it on there, since that just shows that the LDS Church does indeed believe in Christ, something that some people aren’t sure about.  If they were trying to make people mad against the LDS Church, emphasizing commonailties didn’t seem the way to do it.  Then I read the rest of the AP article and “got it.”  The scripture was, “And it came to pass that I looked and beheld the great city of Jerusalem, and also other cities. And I beheld the city of Nazareth; and in the city of Nazareth I beheld a virgin, and she was exceedingly fair and white.”  With the set-up of the card (check it out here) the words “fair and white” are emphasized, as if the makers of the card are trying to bring the race card into play.  Grrh!  As if that matters??!!

The answer is, it doesn’t.  That doesn’t stop people from trying to make a big deal out of it though.

Hopefully the people of South Carolina are smart enough to realize that this was not done by the Church or by Romney, and that whoever did this is playing dirty politics.  Warren Thompkins (a political consultant who ran George Bush’s 2000 campaign in South Carolina and now is Romney’s top consultant in the state) said it best when he said, “Anything this outrageous and childish and nonsensical would have a significant fallout on whoever did it and on whose behalf it was done.”

I surely hope so.

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