Thank you Steve. Good observations.
I heard a Muslim in a program presenting Islam to a crowd probably mostly Christians. He as much as said “we may not be Christians but at least we aren’t those —— atheists”. Atheists and agnostics seem to be the whipping boys of any out religion that wants to show it’s like the others and I guess of any preacher who’s afraid people will see the advantages of staying home on Sunday mornings.

I have heard some people say that Romney couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag. He seemed smart enough. That is, until he said those statements.
Last time I checked, this country was made up of people of all different religious backgrounds and beliefs, and that those people needed to be served too, not just those who believe a certain way.
How ironic is it that the people who make up a large part of the Republican voting bloc wouldn’t consider Romney a Christian at all because he isn’t one of a certain subset of Christians? In trying to appeal to those people, he dismissed everyone else. Big mistake.

I work with a few of the morman religion and they are great people. They also stress that they are sent letters and the church does not encourage them to vote for any particular politician. I am of the catholic faith and remember a good friend of my Mom telling her that there is no way a Catholic will become president. History proved her wrong. Again the media is trying the scare tactic with Mitt’s religion but if you read about the Morman religion you won’t believe the lies stated. At least he is not a hypocrite like Hillary Clinton who uses religion when convenient and is a vile person.

Steven:
Remember Romney’s audience.
He wasn’t appealing to the general electorate. He was appealing to Republican primary voters — a constituency which I’m fairly certain contains almost no atheists and few agnostics.
Of course I noticed the slight. But I’m less bothered given to whom Romney was directing his remarks.

So Larry you are saying he’s saying something now but he doesn’t mean it because he’s just talking to some people? You could well be right.
Kathaleen, on the vileness scale Hillary doesn’t come close to GWB (responsible for the pointless deaths of thousands and thousands of people) or even several of the Republican candidates.
And you really don’t call changing his mind on abortion and gay rights to try to fit his electorate hypocritical?

Wow. Out from that amazing speech Romney delivered you actually deduced an attack on non-believers. You have to look awfully hard and have an amazingly defensive posture to make that illogical of a deduction. Romney’s message was a positive one that made the net broader. Romney didn’t say that non-believers weren’t his allies, only that he feels those who pray are. Either you are a sophist who is using sleight of hand to fool folks or you just need a primer in logic. Most entry level philosophy classes teach basic logic. Some are even available online.

After years of hearing how simply not mentioning religion frequently enough, DLoudnsbury, was the same as being disrepectful, I find those comments a touch ironic.
But I do know that Romney has not stated that the non-believer WILL find a friend and ally in him.
And no, Larry, the primary voters are not very likely to contain a lot of non-believers. But if he wins, his constituency will. So, once this process is over, it might be useful to suss him out regarding whether THAT constituency (which actually numbers more than Mormons, Jews, Hindus and Muslims combined) will find him a ‘friend and ally’ as well.
And naw, it isn’t the worst diss ever given our group.
That’d be far more direct (rather than by omission) by the former President Bush (as opposed to the current one.)
Where he declared that he wasn’t sure atheists could be considered ‘citizens or patriots’, since this was ‘one nation under God, after all’.
Not that I heard a lot of supportive outrage from anyone on that one either.

This is from David Brooks’ column in the NYT; a conservative columnist.
“But now the landscape of religious life has changed. Now its most prominent feature is the supposed war between the faithful and the faithless. Mitt Romney didn’t start this war, but speeches like his both exploit and solidify this divide in people’s minds. The supposed war between the faithful and the faithless has exacted casualties.
The first casualty is the national community. Romney described a community yesterday. Observant Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Jews and Muslims are inside that community. The nonobservant are not. There was not even a perfunctory sentence showing respect for the nonreligious. I’m assuming that Romney left that out in order to generate howls of outrage in the liberal press.”
So even a sometimes-thoughtful conservative saw it.

Karl Rove and his little mentee have been willing for a long time now to split the country for their political gain and it’s worked all too well for them. Now Mitt Romney is headed down that ugly path.

“…deduced an attack on non-believers.”
Little if any deduction needed to be used after Mr. Romney made a public exhibition of his pro-Christian bias.

I wonder sometimes if the mere perfunctory acknowledgement of a non-believer’s rights has any real value. It usually has a tone, that if persued, would probably result in a ‘just sit down and shut up’ attitude. I hardly think most overtly religious people, if pressed, would actually belief in equal respect and equal rights of those who are not believers.

Well, yeah. But, at least the last few years, when the politicians made an obvious play for the religious vote, a few have at least managed a token acknowledgment that the nonbelievers.. well, existed.

So, Donny, to get specific.. If atheists are ‘not at all to be tolerated’, what, exactly, does this lack of tolerance mean?
What do you propose be done to those atheists who, because they are atheists, apparently can’t be relied upon to keep their promises and oaths?
That they can’t, for instance, serve in public office? Or sign contracts, or conduct business? What, exactly, is it that atheists should be required, or forbidden from doing in your view?
Go ahead, don’t hold back (not that you ever do). Tell us what you /really/ think.

Locke was not such a great thinker at all if he thought we aren’t bound by promises, covenants and oaths. Laws and concern for others’ good opinion count for us at least as much as for the believers in Big Invisible Friends.
I’d have said people who don’t subscribe to a foundation-less faith, a hypothesis with no supporting evidence, should be honored.

“Abortionists, which Hillary is and Romney supposedly “was,” are responsible for tens of millions of deaths.”
Actually I doubt either of them ever performed an abortion. But both have been for abortion rights, Hillary being consistent still is, Romney being Romney has changed his tune.
But while we are talking about deaths, meat eaters are responsible for billions of deaths. And, like fetuses, cows hogs and pigs are not humans. Actually cows hogs and pigs suffer fear and pain when they die but fetuses early in the term probably can’t suffer much if any pain and in a competently done abortion it’s over quickly and they never have cause for fear before an abortion.
So while we’d all like to cut down the need for abortions, they are not nearly as serious as some would have us believe.
And instead of arguing about abortions and gay marriages we really need to be thinking about the serious problems like war and especially global warming. That could indeed kill us all.

Larry, I do see that he was trying to appeal to the Republican voting bloc, but I can guarantee you that at least half of the people he was playing to (closer to two-thirds, actually) would not consider Romney as a possibility because they do not consider Mormons (or anyone but their little group) to be Christian, and they will only vote for a Christian. These are the people who voted in GWB. Apparently all they need to hear is that the person claims to be a Christian of the right type; the fruits don’t seem to make a difference.
I grew up with these people; I dated several. I used to be a fundamentalist (although I was sort of a closet liberal). So I am familiar with how these people think. Actually, some of them don’t seem to think at all.
But I will stop being mean now.

Show me where he said he wouldn’t be a friend or ally to the “non-believer”.

He listed those that would find a friend or ally in Mitt. Non-believers weren’t in the list.
It could mean neutrality, but I find no reason to think that he would consider us friends or allies when we don’t qualify. (knelt in prayer to the Almighty.)
Now, if he had said anyone who, say, ‘had red hair will find a friend and ally in Mitt’, and you don’t, would you feel he considered you such?

And I do find, again, that thought humorous.
I mean, how many years was the Democratic Party tarred as being ‘anti-religious’, simply for not doing such things as referencing religion, God and faith in their speeches often enough, or paying enough visits to religious leaders and venues?
And now the same conclusions are being drawn by a speech in which the qualities are specifically mentioned to be a ‘friend and ally’ of the speaker, why would such a conclusion be right then, and wrong now?

“Any believer in secular freedom, any person who has stood up to myths and dogma, has a friend and ally in me.”
Religion is a festering cancer on our planet and pity the ignorant.
Atheism forever.

i do not believe mormons discriminate against any other religious or non-religious groups of any kind they believe we are all sons and daughters of our heavenly father.

Why do atheists claim to have no religion when they follow a religious philosophy and advocate a dogma, same as everybody else?
Why do atheists criticize religion as divisive and discriminatory when they preach against those who do not share their doctrine?

Atheists want a Religious advocate to include them in a statement on their religion??? How “Alice in Wonderland” that desire is. Of course Atheists have only rotten tomatoes to throw a those of religion. Mitt said nothing against Atheists but look at the comments such as “Atheism forever.” What does that have to do with Mitt’s monologue?

As a man who travels by himself I find that many “families” are training themselves and their children to belittle strangers. Call them drug addicts, drug dealers, non believers. Today a young child asked her parent why we talk this way about people. The young mother said “we don’t
want those people around us you never know when they will go crazy and hit us.”
We talk this way because they don’t know Jesus. We say these things because they eventually throw a fit and we win. The child said “win what Mommie.” The mother said we hire them for jobs but we don’t pay them because they don’t believe. They are just beasts we use to further the glory thats is Christs love.