Boy you sure twist their words. Not once was the Muslim world or Islam equated to evil. Quite the opposite. Their point (both candidates) was that we need to reduce the radical Islamic elements influence in that part of the world and show Islam we want to live in peace with them.

All in all a very successful debating season for Mitt. He's shown himself to be human (over which many had doubts) and to be someone who would be able to fill the role. Obama has probably out performed him slightly in the last two debates, but his ability to speak well and look Presidential is nothing new. What is new is his inconstancy he demonstrated via his piss poor performance in the first debate. If I were a Democrat I'd be worried.

Our church had an "interfaith dialogue" with the local Mormon church this past Sunday and one thing came out that worries me about a Romney presidency and makes me feel he has an automatic 15 million votes.

When the topic came up of how would Romney handle pressure from the Mormon church to do certain things if he were to win, the resounding response was "The prophet has ordered us not to discuss this topic". It was said more politely, but that was the gist. And that, in itself, *is* the answer. They do whatever "The Prophet" tells them to do. And that means they will all get out and vote and they will vote for Romney. But it also means if "The Prophet" tells him something, he will do it, not the will of the people and this concerns me.

I know little about Mormons other than that they're evil and should be destroyed. Who does 'The Prophet' refer to? Is it Jesus, or an expected future spokesman of God, or someone else? It'd be damned hard luck for poor old Mitt if he won the election only to discover that Obama's the Prophet.

Prophet=President of the Mormon Church.

Tolstoy has it right, but simplistic. They believe the prophet (the living President, their "pope" has a direct pipeline to God and everything he says is an expression of God's will and commandments to them.

I grew up Mormon but got out of the church about 7 years ago.

What Draugnar says is not quite correct. There are mormons who act as if *everything* the President of the Church says is straight from God, but in reality he only "speaks for God" on certain occasions, and usually makes that clear by the context. Saying that a President Romney would be a puppet of the Mormon church is about like saying a President Kennedy would have been a puppet of the Pope. There is no real basis for it, and it smacks of fear-mongering.

Also, while the LDS church claims 15 million members, more than half of those are outside the US, and about half of the people on the records are not active, participating mormons at all. So there may be about 3 or 4 million really active mormons in the USA, and I can tell you for certain they are not all voting Romney (though 80% or more will). And the only swing state where they might have the numbers to play any significant role is Nevada.

It's good to hear another voice. My intent was not fear mongering but reporting exactly what I observed in the "interfaith dialogue" at my church. It came across as though the Mormon's were more apt to follow the guidance of the prophet than Catholics in america would follow the pope (they shub their noses at him all the time around here, voting for who they want and even using condoms and having extramarital sex).

Well, I think you are correct about that. A catholic can be pretty laid-back about their Catholicism, while a mormon tends to be either devout or completely unaffiliated. There's not many who walk a middling path, and the LDS church and culture makes it difficult to do so. Part of why I left.

I don't think the LDS leaders are going to risk the PR bonanza that having an LDS POTUS could be on interfering in policy. The only area they may be tempted to speak out on is gay marriage, as they've been very active in fighting that all over the country.

I know the official Mormon policy on polygamy is that it doesn't exist in its congregation, but with all the splinter sects that embrace the issue, I was always under the impression that Mormons and gay marriage advocates were uneasy allies (enemy of my enemy is my friend kind of thing) because of the whole definition of marriage as "one man, one woman." Do I have this right?

^ very wrong. Mainline Mormons are not polygamists or even polygamist sympathizers any more. The LDS Church has been one of the main opponents of gay marriage where they exist in numbers, particularly here in California where they were the driving force behind Prop 8 a few years back (the gay marriage ban).

They are uneasy allies because evangelical Christians despise Mormons for their heretical doctrines. But the mainstream, corporate LDS church HATES the polygamous past, and does everything it can to bury it deep.

I find evangelical Christains calling Mormons "heretics" to be so funny. It wasn't that long agao (and in some places still is thouhgt) that the Catholic church called any preotestant faith "heretical". So the heretics are calling yet another faith "heretical". <*shakes head in disbelief*>