MITT ROMNEY, DON'T RELEASE YOUR TAX RETURNS!

Living in Utah as I do, I marvel at the overwhelming support for Mitt Romney.  I hazard a guess that it is about 99% for those who are church-going Mormons.

But membership in the LDS Church has in the past brought problems for those Mormons who pick a fellow Mormon over a "gentile," whether in business, politics, investments or whatever.  Someone who appears trustworthy and honest principally because of church membership sometimes turns out to be the worst scoundrel.

Now I don't say Mitt Romney is a scoundrel or a crook or dishonest.

But I do think that he comes across as all or some of the above when he refuses to release his tax returns.  The Week lists five reasons why stonewalling on tax returns is a bad idea for Mitt Romney.

I concur with all the reasons in The Week:  especially since Romney is rich; he must be hiding something; there will surely be areas where his tax returns will embarrass him; the Democrats have a club to hit Romney over the head as long as he (and his wife, Ann) stonewall.

Personally, I hope Mitt Romney does not cave it.  I hope he keeps stonewalling.  Don't release your tax returns, Mitt!

FORMER UTAH GOV. LEAVITT HOLDS MORMON PRAYER MEETINGS WITH STAFF FOR GUIDANCE ON POLITICAL DECISIONS

Robert Gehrke writes today in The Salt Lake Tribune that records and minutes of former Utah governor Mike Leavitt's meetings with some of his staff discussing "holy and just" Mormon principles are public documents that should be released to the public. Leavitt had requested that the minutes not be released.

Writes Gehrke:

"The transcripts of a series of "Early Morning Seminary" meetings led by Mike Leavitt during his tenure as Utah governor should be available to the public, the Utah State Archives decided Monday.

"Leavitt had argued the meeting transcripts - in which his top staff and trusted advisers explored doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to extract "holy and just" principles that could be applied to government - documented private gatherings, since they were held before business hours and involved friends who were not state employees. . . "

"In a letter to The Tribune last week, Leavitt acknowledged "the role of faith in public policy is a legitimate story," but said the comments of other participants in the discussions should remain private because they expressed thoughts they "may deem to be personal, in some cases even sacred." "

That's the trouble with meetings of this kind. Whoever is the "king" dictates to subordinates what the moral and just principles are. Suppose you were assistant to then Gov. Leavitt and you were a non-believer, or worse yet, a secular humanist, you would be de facto compelled to bury your convictions and adopt the governor's religious attitudes. Either that or be demoted or fired.

No wonder our system of government as set forth in the U.S. Constitution calls for strict separation of church and state. But as we see in this Leavitt mess, there are some in authority who are always angling to get around it.

HYPOCRITICAL MITT RULES OUT MUSLIM IN HIS CABINET BASED ON SMALL NUMBERS IN U.S.

ThinkProgress, one of my favorite liberal news blogs, picks up on an interview of Mitt Romney by Mansoor Ijaz, in which Romney says that based on the number of Muslims in the U.S., he could not foresee adding a Muslim to his cabinet if elected president. The interview is reported on the Christian Science Monitor web site.

Ijaz writes:

"I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that "jihadism" is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, "…based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration.""

Ijaz picks up on Mitt's hypocrisy. Here he turns down Muslims as part of his cabinet because he says they do no represent a sufficient percentage of the population. Yet Mitt as a Mormon is part of a relatively small church in the United States, and based on the number of Mormons, should not be considered for any post in anybody else's cabinet, nor should Mitt be able to be elected president based solely on the number of Mormons to the general American population.

Writes Ijaz:

"Romney, whose Mormon faith has become the subject of heated debate in Republican caucuses, wants America to be blind to his religious beliefs and judge him on merit instead. Yet he seems to accept excluding Muslims because of their religion, claiming they're too much of a minority for a post in high-level policymaking. More ironic, that Islamic heritage is what qualifies them to best engage America's Arab and Muslim communities and to help deter Islamist threats."

ThinkProgress adds:

"Note to Romney: As a Mormon running for President, you’re going to need to come up with a better justification for religious bigotry against Muslims.

"According to the CIA World Factbook (which uses 2002 numbers), Mormons comprise just 2 percent of the U.S. population, while Jews and Muslims comprise 1 percent each. Based on 2001 numbers, there were 2.8 million Mormons and 1.1 million Muslims in the United States. Surveys since that time indicate that the number of Muslims may have eclipsed the number of Mormons living in the U.S."