the mormon thing, ctd

I think this is mostly right*:

Perhaps my anti-Mormonism is showing but I think there’s a a pretty major difference between being unwilling to support candidates of a certain religion for theological reasons and being opposed to them for political reasons. Evangelicals believe Mormons aren’t true Christians, a distinction that is completely pointless to me and not particularly relevant to questions of policy. Liberals believe Mormons … are conservative, which is mostly true...

There’s definitely evidence of liberal intolerance of Mormons, but what liberals aren’t tolerating is conservative churches injecting their beliefs on social issues into the public sphere. What anti-Mormon evangelicals aren’t tolerating is that Mormons believe in Jesus’ magicalness incorrectly.

This liberal anti-Mormonism will make no difference in the election, of course — these are people who wouldn’t vote for a Republican no matter his religion. The conclusion of the study says that still-extant anti-Mormon feeling among conservatives is what could actually affect the outcome in November. (And even that is likely to affect the result only at the margins.)

*Apologies to linking to Salon, which is an abomination of web design. I do try not to make a habit of such things.