"There is only one way I can visualize religion being a legitimate issue in an American political campaign. That would be if one of the canidates for the presidency had no religious belief." -Richard Nixon
I heard recently that in April a member of John McCain’s presidential campaign made public comments alleging that the LDS Church (Mormons) had ties to Hamas and related the treatment of women within the LDS Church to treatment of women under the Taliban. He also made comments questioning if members of the LDS Church were Christians, all comments directed at drawing support away from fellow presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
It is interesting that staffers of two other presidential candidates (Rudy Giuliani and Kansas Senator Sam Brownback) and the Reverend Al Sharpton have also made public derogatory comments about the LDS Church, and all three have subsequently apologized to the LDS Church and Mitt Romney. I find it odd that after three other figures in the limelight have come out and apologized for similar comments that staffers would still decide to make attack Mitt Romney’s religion. Leave it alone already! I know however, that this will probably happen again. What can I say, politics is a dirty game.
What bugs me most about this particular comment is, well, one, frankly I don’t see how anyone would connect the LDS Church to terrorists. That comment just baffles me. But what bugs me even more that than is the comment that women within the LDS church are treated like women under the Taliban. That is even more ridiculous.
As an LDS woman I do not feel like I am repressed. Why would I? Yeah, I am going to have kids and I will probably stay at home to take care of them, but that is my own choice. That is what I want to do. No one is forcing me. I can’t image a better way to live my life than being there for my kids.
I can just hear the responses now. “She’s been brainwashed! Of course she doesn’t really feel like that. Years and years of brainwashing has made her think that’s what she wants when really she is, in fact, oppressed.” Oh please.
Everyone has different ideas about the nature of reality. Every human has certain beliefs that allow them to synthesize the world around them. Different cultures and religions may have a different idea about the nature of reality than you do. You may disagree with their nature of reality, and they probably disagree about yours.
Religion is a set of beliefs that create an order of reality for individuals, beliefs that are so true to individuals that they seem “uniquely real” or common sense. Individuals will use these ideas to interpret their life experiences. However, these ideas do not necessarily need to be associated with an established religious organization. A person can develop their ideas by various social experiences. Everyone therefore, even those who do not participate in a recognized church, has an idea about the nature of reality. So this brainwashed theory? Well, I guess if I have been brainwashed, then so has everyone else.
