Is Anti-Mormonism Bigotry?

On the History News Network, Gil Troy excoriates Mike Huckabee for raising a question about Mormonism. By now this story is well-known. Huckabee told an interviewer that he wasn't going to pass judgment on Mitt Romney's faith, then as an afterthought asked whether Mormons believe that Jesus and "the Devil" are brothers. In Troy's judgment, this is bigotry.

I'm not about to defend Huckabee on anything. He's disqualified himself from consideration for the presidency for billing himself as a "Christian Leader" in his Iowa TV ads. I don't think he asked that question in the spirit of honest inquiry. Nevertheless, it's a question he and every other American has a right to ask. We have as much right to know as much as we can about Mormon doctrine as we have to learn the elite teachings or Scientology or the mythology of the Nation of Islam. I have no reason to doubt the Mormon scholars who've decisively said that the LDS believe no such thing as Huckabee suggested. It's of no moral concern to me whether Mormons place Jesus and Satan on the same family tree or not. If they did, I wouldn't be scandalized, but only further convinced of Mormonism's fundamental stupidity.

Every American has a right to make a learned judgment that Mormonism is stupid and its adherents fools. To simplify matters, we have a right to pass judgments on Mormonism without being called bigots. We have the same right to pass judgment on any religion, whether they belong to some imagined mainstream or to some fringe separated from the mainstream by barbed wire and armed guards. As long as we go to the trouble of educating ourselves first, we can simply dismiss or severely detest any religion, and we will not be bigots. That's because every religion is a value system, a set of metaphysical theses and rules for human conduct. To say that a value system, a metaphysical thesis, or a rule for conduct can't be judged and condemned is absurd. Indeed, religion can only be judged for what it does, not for what it is. Bigotry is hating something or someone for what it is. It is a matter of finding something repugnant without caring to know why. It is hating something for no good reason, or no reason at all. A proselytizing religion by its nature cannot be subject to bigotry, because its adherents are telling you what they believe, and that's what you're responding to. That doesn't mean you can't have an irresponsible attitude toward Mormonism or similar movements. There's never been any good reason to kill Mormons, and they shouldn't be reduced to second-class citizenship. But with that said, I think I have some right to question whether someone can accept Joseph Smith's stories from less than 200 years ago on faith and still be competent to lead the country.

Gil Troy looks forward to a time when Mormon politicians will be as unalarming to the general public as the several Catholics currently running for President. I was at first going to reply that I was satisfied that most Catholics, aside from the rabid types like William Donohue, simply soak up sacraments without really giving intellectual assent to the whoppers of dogma. On the other hand, how do I know that any of these Catholic politicians don't support Donohue and his repressive agenda? Why can't we ask a debate question about the Golden Compass controversy, for instance, given the frivolous queries that do get asked? Likewise, oughtn't we to know whether Mike Huckabee believes in the Rapture or not? I say they're all fair game. After all, if atheists are going to be judged and condemned for what they don't believe, everyone else should have to account for what they do believe. Let's have it all out in the open, and then no one can say that people are making bigoted judgments -- except, inevitably, for those who lose.