OUTview online; NEWS and VIEWS, What's your VIEW?: 2012

by Derrick Shore

Growing up in a devout Latter-Day Saint (Mormon) family in a suburb of Salt Lake City, I knew my religion as well as my name. My mom played the organ in a Mormon temple, I was a Boy Scout, and there was rarely a Sunday when we would miss church. Praying at least three times daily and studying the Book of Mormon were as essential as brushing our teeth or making dinner.

For the first time in American history a Mormon is the presidential nominee for a major political party. And while the Romney campaign has swiftly dismissed questions about his religion as inappropriate and irrelevant, it may seem that much of the media have tiptoed around this topic and have discussed the LDS church in glossy, broad terms. But here's why Mr. Romney's religion is relevant: For Mormons, there really is no such thing as separation of church and state.

by Anthony Michael Kreis

The Republican Platform has arrived after much anticipation. It may very well be the most conservative platform the Party has yet to produce. The document embraces right leaning positions on everything from expanding gun rights to prosecuting pornography. But for those of us with a keen interest in the LGBT rights movement, the platform notably takes some positions that simply do not reflect reality.

It is important to approach and analyze the platform planks not from a partisan perspective, but from an academic, fact-driven one.

The Republican platform's declares that, "We . . . condemn the State blacklisting of religious groups which decline to arrange adoptions by same-sex couples. We condemn the hate campaigns, threats of violence, and vandalism by proponents of same-sex marriage against advocates of traditional marriage and call for a federal investigation into attempts to deny religious believers their civil rights."