"Mormons Rock!" ~Newsweek

"[The Mormons] have conquered Broadway, talk radio, the U.S. Senate-and they may win the White House," goes the lead of a Newsweek article on Mitt Romney and the Mormons.


By virtue of his second place in the 2008 GOP Primary - and now a lead in recent polls - Romney is seen as the 2012 frontrunner to challenge Obama.

This Newsweek cover picture depicting Romney as a dancing missionary is better than Romney and five "Little House on the Prairie" costume-clad women dancing around him. The latter may be a thing of the past, though it may still be possible today, but only if the publisher has an intolerant religious agenda sponsored and financed by the audacious liberal arm of the media.

But even this Romney cover is tamer and less offensive - if at all - especially when compared with this cover caricature of Obama in which he is portrayed as a Muslim wearing a turban, while bump-fisting Mrs. Obama. (And what's with the gun?)

The fact that the Romney cover reflects a much kinder and gentler treatment of the LDS Church, does speak - hopefully - for a change and shift in old attitudes and opinions about the faith. Other pundits agree that these such treatments mean that the LDS Church is finally - or has begun - entering mainstream, and Main Street, I should add.

Speaking of main street, one of Broadway's hottest musicals now is based on the Book of Mormon. Though presented in parodic and satirical fashion, it still reflects part of a somewhat repulsive initiation phase for the Church, and one that is obviously changing.

With Romney as a serious and credible candidate, Jon Huntsman Jr. - also Mormon - is waiting in the wings. Huntsman is still considering a run. But whether he will or will not enter the race, just being in the political and public limelight now helps in projecting the LDS Church as an up and coming force in presidential politics.

And despite the many enemies of the LDS Church still lurking, ironically, in churchyards and pulpits across America, as well as in other covert hideouts and facades of religious intolerance and bigotry, the truth about the Mormons' resilience may be slowly percolating.  Hence, I think the Mormons should loudly declare - with unabated confidence - "We're here! "  Or at least as the Newsweek article states: "Mormons Rock!"