In a lengthy New York Times magazine opinion, Noah Feldman, tried to explain �What is it about Mormonism?� The column is an abridgement of a speech Feldman gave in November 2007 at the Mormonism and America conference at Princeton University. He also did a recent interview on anti-Mormon bias on Salt Lake City-based KUER-FM.

Hendrik Hertzberg, who wrote a recent column in the New Yorker magazine mocking LDS beliefs, should have read Feldman�s analysis before he sat down at the computer and wrote: �And the dogmas of Mitt Romney�s sect are breathtaking.� Certainly, �breathtaking� has a lot to do with one�s experience. Sure, the unfamiliar may seem unusual, but those with open minds don�t dismiss it out of hand but rather seek to understand it.

Compare Hertzberg�s take to Feldman�s writing. �Still, even among those who respect Mormons personally, it is still common to hear Mormonism�s tenets dismissed as ridiculous," Feldman wrote. "This attitude is logically indefensible insofar as Mormonism is being compared with other world religions.

�There is nothing inherently less plausible about God�s revealing himself to an upstate New York farmer in the early years of the Republic than to the pharaoh�s changeling grandson in ancient Egypt. But what is driving the tendency to discount Joseph Smith�s revelations is not that they seem less reasonable than those of Moses; it is that the book containing them is so new. When it comes to prophecy, antiquity breeds authenticity. Events in the distant past, we tend to think, occurred in a sacred, mythic time.�

So we come full circle to religious tolerance. It�s not about making judgments about each others� faith or even lack thereof. It�s respecting all faiths and beliefs in the context of a tolerant and civil nation. The news media has a responsibility to set this tone of respect.

SHORT TAKES

The New York Post treatment: Mormons aren�t the first ones to be part of the blaring, gotcha tabloid headlines of the New York Post. It is still interesting to see �Mormon� in such large type. �THE MORMON THE MERRIER� ran over the story about Mitt Romney�s primary win in Michigan.