I missed the memo that said it's A-OK to make disparaging and often erroneous statements about Mormons.

Apparently, they are fair game.

Sure, these are hypersensitive times, when name-calling or perceived bias against any group will get you the Don Imus treatment, but you get a free shot with Mormons. You can say what you want about them with impunity.

If you denigrate a racial group, you're racist.

If you denigrate women, you're sexist.

If you denigrate Mormons, you're hip.

No one would openly suggest that you shouldn't vote for Hillary Clinton because a woman can't lead the country, especially an ornery one.

Nobody would dare say that you shouldn't vote for Barack Hussein Obama because he's black, or of Muslim descent, or because he has a name that sounds like a terrorist. One Clinton worker even apologized for alluding to Obama's use of drugs as a youth, so apparently it's wrong to disparage former drug users, too.

But nobody is shy about saying you shouldn't vote for Romney simply because he's a Mormon. It doesn't even register on the PC-O-Meter.

Just like that, 6 million Americans have been virtually disqualified from running for president. They've been rendered second-class citizens. They're foreigners living in America. They face a glass ceiling.

How un-American is that?

It would be one thing if most of those who oppose Romney did so because they disagreed with his politics or character. But Romney is one of the few candidates who has no character issues, a "squeaky clean" man who has a distinguished record of accomplishments, success and service, with no divorces, no affairs, no scandal. The only thing opponents can say about him is that he belongs to a church they don't understand.

A Harvard law professor called Romney the most qualified of all the candidates and "the perfect candidate for this moment in time." But there is his Mormonism, he noted.

Even the self-styled PC chief of police, Al Sharpton, once jumped in on the action, saying, "As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyways."

Mormons don't believe in God?

For his penance, all Sharpton had to do was endure a family home evening in Utah.

It's open season on Mormons. A few days ago, Miami Herald columnist Dan Le Batard stated on ESPN and in the newspaper that part of the reason fired coach Cam Cameron failed was because he got stuck with a Mormon quarterback — not a rookie quarterback (which he is) but a Mormon quarterback.