The Post reports that Lawrence O’Donnell who appears on HBO’s series “Big Love” the story of a polygamist Mormon with three wives is also an MSNBC pundit and, of course, they added that he is a Democrat. Can I just say that I love the fact that people can be Hollywood actors AND advisors to US Senators as O'Donnell is. It's so reassuring.
So, anyway, O’Donnell was a guest on The McLaughlin Group talking about Mitt Romney being a Mormon and he described Mormonism as being:
"demented, Scientology-like . . . racist faith . . . based on the work of a lying, fraudulent criminal . . . [who was] anti-American, pro-slavery, and a rapist."
McLaughlin was yelling at him to stop talking but he didn’t.
And the thing is, even though he’s getting raked over the coals for saying that – and the real trouble he is in has got to be about PR linking back to the fact that he works on a show about Mormons – what he said is more or less true. Joseph Smith was a lying fraudulent con-artist. But then, it’s more or less true of basically all religion anyway so if you really want to talk about how freaking insane religion is you can’t single out the Mormons. Every brand of faith always essentially boils down to being the ideas of a group of people hell bent on economic and or political dominance. That’s it. Most religion is totally ludicrous when you really examine where it came from and what it’s about.
But also, rational discourse about faith isn’t possible during an election. It’s all mostly skimming over the top and meaningless rhetoric about acceptance of difference. Discussion about acceptance is meaningless because no religion is fully tolerant of any other religion. That’s not how it works. Therefore political arguments about religion are really just an exercise in walking through a field of landmines.
Anyway, in short, kudos to you Lawrence O’Donnell. But did you have to pretty much ensure that your actual day job came under fire? There are so many other religions to choose from. [source]
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