Romney, his Mormonism a campaign issue again, condemns religious bigotry

Philip Rucker

The Washington Post

October 9, 2011 ET

The first time he ran for pres­ident, Mitt Romney chose again and again to confront the suspicions and prej­u­dices held by many in the Re­publican Party's evan­gel­ical base about his Mormon faith.
This time, Romney is focus­ing re­lent­lessly on the econ­o­my and is con­spic­uous in how rarely he talks about God. He no longer tries to convince evan­gel­ical vot­ers that he is as Chris­tian as they are, that Jesus Christ is his person­al sav­ior and that he, too, reads the Gideon Bible before bed.
And when the po­lit­ically uncomfort­able issue of his re­ligion boiled over this week­end in the most pro­nounced way yet in the 2012 con­test,       

Romney pursued his new strategy of not di­rectly address­ing his faith.

At a gath­ering of Chris­tian conservative vot­ers in Wash­ington on Friday, evan­gel­ical megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress, cho­sen to introduce Texas Gov. Rick Perry, attacked Romney by telling reporters the Mormon Church is "a cult" and "Mormon­ism is not Chris­tian­ity." Perry quickly dis­tanced him­self from that view, telling reporters in Iowa that he did not agree with the re­marks.
When Romney,a for­mer Massachusetts gover­nor, addressed the same summit Sat­urday, he nev­er uttered the word "Mormon." He spoke of the nation's "heritage of re­ligious faith and tol­erance," but not of his own faith.
Romney did, howev­er, feel compelled to de­nounce re­ligious big­otry and take on those who       

inject what he called "poi­sonous language" into the po­lit­ical arena.

"The bless­ings of faith carry the responsibility of civ­il and respectful debate," Romney said. "The task before us is to focus on the conservative be­liefs and the val­ues that unite us. Let no agenda narrow our vi­sion or drive us       

apart. We have important work to accomplish."

Mark DeMoss, a prom­inent evan­gel­ical strate­gist and se­nior advis­er to Romney, said Romney is "largely ignor­ing" the attacks on his re­ligion. He said this is "in part because it's an old line of attack by now and also in part because I think more people are go­ing to reject that kind of campaigning that was rep­resented by Jeffress." In a poll, most Re­publican-leaning vot­ers said they don't care whether a can­didate is Mormon.
Jeffress is a longtime Perry support­er and partnered with Perry for "The Response," an Au­gust prayer event at a Houston football sta­dium.
Perry's campaign said the gover­nor does not agree with the Baptist preach­er's com­ments about Romney's re­ligion but stopped short