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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMormon Church's Prior Baptism Of Dead Jews Could Raise Concerns For Florida Voters
Mitt Romney's problem with evangelical Christian voters has been well documented.
But as the Republican presidential nomination fight heats up in Florida, a Mormon rite that leaves many Jews seething could prove awkward for the candidate in a state that's home to more Jewish people than any other besides New York and California.
The religious rite is proxy baptism for the dead. According to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormon Church, these posthumous "blessings" are intended to "save" ancestors and others who weren't baptized in life or were baptized "without proper authority."
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When Newsweek magazine asked Romney if he personally had performed posthumous baptisms on anyone, author Jonathan Darman wrote, "he looked slightly startled and answered, 'I have in my life, but I haven't recently.' The awareness of how odd this will sound to many Americans is what makes Romney hesitant to elaborate on the Mormon question."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/mormon-church-mitt-romney_n_1229322.html
Which is why the Catholic Church won't let the Mormons have any church records.
mucifer
(23,374 posts)He's gonna loose some Jewish votes.
fredamae
(4,458 posts)Members of my family who had passed, who firmly Rejected Mormonism in Life-were Baptized posthumously in Spite of family objections.
Women are to be subservient and the dead have no more choice. Just these two issues are Not gonna fly.
Forced Religion, in both life and death is bad.
ProgressiveProfessor
(22,144 posts)HockeyMom
(14,337 posts)The majority of information on their site are from Old Census Records which are public records. They have copied and put these online for their members and anyone else to use them.
They also have birth, marriage, and death records, but these are sparse. I always thought that with these one would have to have a family connection to search or post them. If you find a realtive's vital records, does it mean somebody from the LDS church was doing a search on your family for their religious purposes?
Well, I found a listing for my Grandfather's Baptism, which I couldn't find before. My guess on this is that I must have a relative somewhere in the Mormon church doing a search, and baptism, on their relatives. I really don't know.
Grandpa was a Protestant who later became Catholic when he married Grandma. That is how they could have gotten around the Catholic Church records.