There’s been a strong theme in the last 30 years in popular representations of Mormons of Mormon violence against non-Mormons, pioneer violence. Hutchison-Jones: I think a lot of what Americans think they know about Mormonism is wrong. BU Today: What do Americans in 2012 think of Mormons, and how much of what they think is accurate?
A Pew Forum poll in July found 81 percent saying that they were comfortable with, or indifferent to, Romney’s faith.īU Today spoke with Hutchison-Jones about what prejudice against Mormons says about us and the prospects for Romney’s second bid for the White House. The negative images of Mormons far outlasted my expectations.” If voters’ self-description can be trusted, things may not be so grim. To her surprise, she learned that Mormonism remains “really problematic for a lot of people. Hutchison-Jones, a Harvard University administrator, is not Mormon, but an interest in religious intolerance led her to write her BU doctoral dissertation on “Reviling and Revering the Mormons: Defining American Values, 1890-2008.” (Those years marked the official Mormon abandonment of polygamy and Mitt Romney’s first run for president, respectively.) She began with the assumption that this would be another American story of a minority’s assimilation into, and acceptance by, the mainstream culture. Facts aside, Mitt Romney’s Mormonism has alarmed some conservative Christian voters pondering his run for president. In fact, she says, “no one has been more aggressive about prosecuting polygamists in this country in the 20th and 21st century than Mormons.” As for that underwear thing, she notes that other religions invest certain garb with sacred significance. And even though the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints renounced polygamy in the 1890s (with the exception of a militant sliver), some non-Mormons suspect that “fundamentalist groups were somehow hiding in plain sight within the fold of the church,” says scholar Cristine Hutchison-Jones (GRS’11).
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Photo by Austen HuffordĪ recent USA Today story highlights how many Americans are “uninformed” about, and “wary” of, Mormonism, put off by such practices as the wearing of blessed undergarments as the sign of full fellowship in the church. Twitter Facebook Why is this man smiling? Anti-Mormon prejudice could hobble Mitt Romney’s campaign, a BU-trained scholar warns.
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