Gambling on Romney

The enemy of my enemy is my friend, or so the saying goes.

But I'm not quite sure that's always true.   Take, for instance, the peculiar reality that seems to have manifested itself in this current election cycle.

The nominee for the Grand Old Party is a straight-laced family man, who is often unfairly criticized for his tendency to seem a bit too much like a dad out of a 1950s sitcom.   His conservative Mormon faith is generally assumed to be, for good or for ill, a primary reason for why he presents the way he presents.  Where he's critiqued by the left, concerns about the social positions of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints often surface.

This leads to a rather puzzling dissonance, though, because while my fading liberal/centrist oldline denomination and Mormonism might disagree on some...well...quite a few...things, there are some things we're simpatico on.  

One of them is this: we're shoulder to shoulder, bolder and bolder when it comes to gambling.

In a statement from 1950, the Presbyterian Church described gambling as "...an unChristian attempt to get something for nothing or at another's expense."   At around the same time, the First Presidency of the LDS issued a position statement saying that "..The Church has been and now is unalterably opposed to gambling in any form whatever.   It is opposed to any game of chance, occupation, or so-called business, which takes money from the person who may be possessed of it without giving value received in return."  

Neither of those positions have shifted.   Gambling, or so the official line of the LDS goes, weakens the community.   That's the current stance of the PC(USA), too.

It's also my position.  I think "gaming" is a wee bit foolish for thems that are eagerly getting taken, inherently predatory for those whose doin' the takin', and devoid of value whichever way.

I've been to casinos, and I find them both garish and depressing.  Gaming is not an industry.  It builds nothing.  It creates nothing.  It's entertainment, I suppose, in the way that someone taking your money from you and occasionally giving you the thrill of getting a fraction of it back is entertainment.   And sure, making money off of suckers by using the psychology of intermittent reinforcement is cunning, in its own way.   But as big business, it adds nothing positive to our culture.  I've said so here, and I have said so from the pulpit.

This makes the current partnership between the GOP and gambling money so weird.  I find it peculiar that a former LDS bishop would be willing to benefit from the $100,000,000 that has been committed to the GOP by billionaire Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.   One.  Hundred.  Million.  Dollars.  Those dollars were gained in a way that Mormons, Christian conservatives, and even wacko leftist apostate oldline denominations like my own view as morally questionable.

Here's the largest single commitment of funds ever by an individual to a campaign...and it's a gambling tycoon trying to get the candidate of the party that presents itself as representing traditional conservative Christian/Christian-ish values elected.

It's bizarre.  It's ironic.   It's so bizarrely ironic that it almost merits creating the word bizzaronic for the sole purpose of describing it.

But then again, politics is all about power, and money is power, so I suppose I shouldn't be so surprised.

Mormons

Hello!  We're running for president!

As the field of presidential contenders for 2012 slowly coagulates, several things are striking about those who are sort of rising up to do battle with Obama.  Most of the GOP offerings, and by this I mean pretty much all of them, well, they're a carnival freak show.

Gingrich?  His back story reflects a level of moral lapse that his conversion to Catholicism clearly hasn't cured.  I mean, really.  If he took his Catholicism seriously, I think the only words we'd hear out of his mouth between now and August of 2019 would be "Hail Mary, full of grace, our Lord is with thee..."  The 7,777,000 Hail Marys that the manual requires for cheating on your cancer-stricken wife take a while to choke out.

Palin?  Even Roger Ailes, head of Fox, is done with her remarkable lack of actual competence.  And Bachmann?  She makes Palin look like Marie Curie.

Honestly, though, there are at least two serious contenders.  Both Mitt Romney and John Huntsman are relatively moderate, intelligent, capable politicians.  Both have solid records of competence in governing.  Both look like they could be president, in that they'd fit seamlessly into that scene in the movie when the president comes on to rally our spirits in the face of the K'Tall protein harvester fleet assembling in low earth orbit.  They are tall, more or less handsome, with attractive wives and families.  They are generally decent, well-spoken, and completely electable.

And they're both Mormon.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has always been something of a bafflement to me.   Faith in God is inherently difficult to grasp rationally, of course.  The tenets of my own Christian faith are likely as incomprehensible to some as are the tenets of the LDS church.

From my own assessment of Mormonism, I end up at the same place as my denomination.  It's just too idiosyncratic to be within the bounds of Christianity understood historically.  However, even though many conservative Jesus folk get their knickers in a twist at the peculiarities of Mormon theology, I just can't bring myself to fret about it.  That Mormon theology isn't really Christian faith (in the orthodox, Trinitarian sense) is immaterial.   I've got no problem with folks who are Christian-ish or non-Christian being in elective office.  This is America, dagflabbit.  You can believe or not believe what you wish.

That's not to say I don't have issue with schtuff.  I'd prefer it if Mormonism's hierarchy wasn't quite so vigorously set against GLBT folk.  OK, more than just prefer.  But in that, it stands with most of global Christianity.  It's more a matter of social conservatism than anything else.

Then there's Mormonism's founding document, which is so disconnected with actual material reality as to confound even my generally open mind.   Forget about the everyone-gets-their-own-planet God-is-three-guys-who-hang-out theology.  Entire civilizations are described for which there is no evidence.

Sure, evidentiary issues exist elsewhere in the faith world.  We get the words of Jesus of Nazareth, for example, through a multi-generational game of oral and written Telephone.  There's significant imprecision in that process.  But Jerusalem was actually a city.   Bethlehem existed.  Rome was real.   People actually spoke koine Greek and Aramaic.

But "Ancient America?"  Inhabited by the Thirteenth Tribe of Israel, which spread into a vast empire that then destroyed itself?   It just never happened.  Not part of it.  Not the supernatural bits that the rationally inclined might struggle with.  The entire thing.  The Jefferson Book of Mormon is just a single blank page.

But honestly?  I'm not sure that it matters on a personal level.

As gobsmackingly improbable as their founding document is, the Mormon folk I've known have tended to be quirky, smart, creative and thoughtful.  They're the kind of people who'd help you out in a pinch.  Their engagement with their faith has tended to be on a more practical level, more focused on family and work and community.  They've been good folks, in the same way that Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists I've known are good folks.  My issues with Huntsman or Romney would be around their policies, not their personal faith.

Unfortunately for both Romney and Huntsman, I'm not sure a significant portion of the GOP base is going to be willing to cut them that much slack.