Jeffress and the end of the Mormon Question?

Mitt Romney finds himself in a tight race against a flagging opponent. One of the opponent's supporters attacks his religion as a sinister, un-American force. Romney's opponent quickly disavows the remark, but the media continue to repeat the accusation to Romney's detriment.

This may sound like the case of Robert Jeffress, the Baptist preacher and Rick Perry supporter who garnered national attention by proclaiming that Mormonism is a cult disqualifying Romney for the presidency. It is actually, however, the story of Mitt Romney's unsuccessful 1994 run against Senator Edward Kennedy, when Kennedy's nephew, a Massachusetts congressman, accused Romney of being a racist because he is a Mormon.

Most of the punditry on Romney and the Mormon Question ?— "Can a Latter-day Saint be president?" — has focused on conservative evangelicals. Will the foot soldiers of the religious right support a candidate whose religion they find abhorrent? There is little doubt that Jeffress speaks for many conservative Christians when he dismisses Mormonism as a dangerous cult.

Despite this fact, however, polls consistently find that Democrats as a group are more opposed to the idea of a Mormon president than Republicans. Given The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' conservative stance of social issues and its involvement in efforts to support traditional marriage, this is hardly surprising. It does, however, raise the interesting question of whether President Barack Obama's supporters will play the Mormon card should Romney become the GOP candidate.

Ironically, in the long run the vitriol of conservative evangelical attacks on his religion probably helps Romney more than it hurts him. Mainstream liberal pundits have almost universally condemned Jeffress's comments as an un-American effort to impose a de facto religious test for public office. Their furor may help to lay the Mormon Question to rest should Romney survive the GOP primaries.

The commentariat's outrage at Jeffress is no doubt sincere, but one suspects that it also stems in large part from fear of — and contempt for — conservative evangelicals. Being attacked by the religious right inevitably gives one a least a partial glow on the political left. The question now is whether the widespread condemnation of Jeffress marks a turning point.