Romney’s Mormonism more of a negative in South Carolina
COLUMBIA, S.C. �“ Does Mitt Romney’s Mormonism matter in South Carolina, a state with a large evangelical population? The consensus seems to be that it’s not a particularly big factor. Tony Perkins, President of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, said Thursday after the debate that he had not heard a lot about it since coming to South Carolina.
But two of the first people The Daily Caller spoke to at an event at Tommy’s Hamhouse in Greenville, where both Romney and Newt Gingrich made appearances Saturday morning, brought it up, and not as a positive.
For Chuck Hofstra, Romney’s religion is flat out a “deal killer.”
“I like a lot about Romney, I get a lot of positives … but you know, his faith of Mormonism … I mean, they do not believe in the deity of Jesus Christ, that he is the son of God. And if you take away the deity of the son of God, who died for our sins to forgive us of our sins, all he is is just a mere historical figure then,” said Hofstra.
“That is a huge difference between somebody who believes he’s Jesus Christ, the son of God, co-creator of the world, the Trinity, versus somebody who just thinks, ‘well he was a good man, a good prophet who walked here on earth, a historical figure, he’s a great man, but that’s the end of it.’ And see it’s just hard for me to vote for somebody who just doesn’t see the deity of Jesus Christ,” he said.
Hofstra, who said he probably wouldn’t end up voting in the primary because there was no one for whom he could vote “and be true to my own conscience and heart and beliefs,” said it was less about what particular denomination of Christianity he was, and more about his “personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ.”
Hofstra brought up Romney’s religion up without any prompting.
Eley Vann, another attendee of the event, also brought it up unprompted.
Vann was undecided as of this morning, but said his decision would be between Gingrich and Romney.
He liked Romney, “even though I disagree with his — I’m not a Mormon. I’m a Christian and I think Mormonism is a cult.”
But, Vann went on to say, Romney’s religion was not a part of his decision.
“I like many principles of Mormonism. Mormonism is very pro-American, and you know, I would not hold his religion against him. I am looking for someone to help preserve this country, not a religious leader,” Vann said.
Of course, this is an utterly unscientific or conclusive study, and it would be inappropriate to draw conclusions from two discussions. But the fact that it came up unbidden is interesting, at the very least.
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