LITTLE ROCK — Some black clergy see no good presidential choice between a Mormon candidate and one who supports same-sex marriage, so they are telling their flocks to stay home on Election Day. That’s a worrisome message for the nation’s first black president, who can’t afford to lose any voters from his base in a tight race.
The pastors say their congregants are asking how a true Christian could back same-sex marriage, as President Barack Obama did in May. As for Republican Mitt Romney, the first Mormon nominee from a major party, congregants are questioning the theology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its former ban on men of African descent in the priesthood.
In 2008, Obama won 95 percent of black voters and is likely to get an overwhelming majority again. But any loss of votes would sting.
“When President Obama made the public statement on gay marriage, I think it put a question in our minds as to what direction he’s taking the nation,” said Pastor A.R. Bernard, founder of the predominantly black Christian Cultural Center in New York. Bernard, whose endorsement is much sought after in New York and beyond, voted for Obama in 2008. He said he’s unsure how he’ll vote this year.
It’s unclear just how widespread the sentiment is that black Christians would be better off not voting at all. Many pastors have said that despite their misgivings about the candidates, blacks have fought too hard for the vote to ever stay away from the polls.
Black church leaders have begun get-out-the-vote efforts on a wide range of issues, including the proliferation of state voter identification laws, which critics say discriminate against minorities. On Easter Sunday, a month before Obama’s same-sex marriage announcement, minister Jamal-Harrison Bryant of Baltimore formed the Empowerment Network, a national coalition of about 30 denominations working to register congregants and provide them with background on health care, the economy, education and other policy issues.
Yet, Bryant last month told The Washington Informer, a black newsweekly, “This is the first time in black church history that I’m aware of that black pastors have encouraged their parishioners not to vote.” Bryant, who opposes same-sex marriage, said the president’s position on marriage is “at the heart” of the problem.
Bryant was traveling and could not be reached for additional comment, his spokesman said.
COMPLEX CONVERSATIONS
The circumstances of the 2012 campaign have led to complex conversations about faith, politics and voting.
George Nelson Jr., senior pastor of Grace Fellowship Baptist Church in Brenham, Texas, participated in a conference call with other black pastors the day after Obama’s announcement, during which the ministers resolved to oppose same-sex marriage. Nelson said Obama’s statement had caused a “storm” in the black community.
Still, he said, “I would never vote for a man like Romney,” because Nelson holds the view that Mormonism is a cult.
As recently as the 2008 GOP primaries, the Southern Baptist Convention’s Baptist Press ran articles calling the Mormon church a cult. This year, however, prominent Southern Baptists have discouraged use of the term when addressing theological differences with Mormonism. Many Southern Baptist leaders have emphasized there are no religious obstacles to voting for a Mormon.
Nelson planned to vote and has told others to do the same. He declined to say which candidate he would support.
“Because of those that made sacrifices in days gone by, and some greater than others with their lives, it would be totally foolish for me to mention staying away from the polls,” he said.
Romney has pledged to uphold conservative positions on social issues, including opposing abortion and same-sex marriage. But many black pastors worry about his Mormon beliefs. Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox Christians generally do not see Mormonism as part of historic Christianity, although Mormons do.
RACIALLY BIASED
Blacks generally still view the church as racially biased. When Latter-day Saints leaders lifted the ban on blacks in the priesthood in 1978, church authorities never said why. The Mormon community has grown more diverse, and the church has repeatedly condemned racial bias. However, while most Christian denominations have publicly repented for past discrimination, Latter-day Saints never apologized for barring blacks from the priesthood and from entering Mormon temples.
Bernard is among the traditional Christians who voted for Obama in 2008 and are now undecided because of the president’s support for same-sex marriage. But Bernard is also troubled by Romney’s faith.
“To say you have a value for human life and exclude African-American human life, that’s problematic,” Bernard said, about the priesthood ban. “How can I judge the degree to which candidate Romney is going to allow his Mormonism to influence his policies? I don’t know. I can’t.”
Romney said in a 2007 speech that Mormon authorities would have no influence on his policies as president. He also said he wept when he learned that the priesthood ban had been abolished, because he was anxious for it to be lifted. But Romney and his father, the late Gov. George W. Romney, never publicly opposed the church’s doctrines that discriminated against blacks.
Several black ministers said it’s fair to raise questions about Mitt Romney and Mormonism.
“Obama was supposed to answer for the things that Rev. Wright said,” said Pastor Floyd James of the Greater Rock Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago, at a recent meeting of the historically black National Baptist Convention. “Yet here’s a guy [Romney] who was a leader in his own church that has that kind of history, and he isn’t held to some kind of account? I have a problem with that.”
Obama broke in 2008 with his longtime Chicago pastor, Jeremiah Wright, after videos of his incendiary sermons were broadcast.
SHOULD BE OFF LIMITS
Many Democrats and Republicans have argued that Romney’s faith should be off limits. Ordained minister Derrick Harkins, faith outreach director for the Democratic National Committee, travels around the country speaking to black pastors and other clergy. He said concerns over same-sex marriage have receded as other issues take precedence, and no pastors have raised Mormonism in their conversations with him about the two candidates.
“There’s just no space in this campaign for casting aspersions on anyone’s faith,” Harkins said. “It’s not morally upright. It’s not ethically appropriate.”
Lin Hill, an associate pastor of Bethany Baptist Church in Chesapeake, Va., said that he plans to travel with other local pastors to about 50 congregations over two weeks to hold discussions and distribute voter guides that will include a contrast between historic Christianity and Mormonism, and educate congregants about the former priesthood ban.
Hill is active in his local Democratic Party but said he’s acting independently of the campaign. He said Mormon theology becomes relevant when congregants argue that they can’t vote for Obama because, as a Christian, he should have opposed same-sex marriage.
“If you’re going to take a tenet of a religion and let that dissuade you from voting, then we have to” discuss Mormon doctrine, Hill said. “We want folks to have a balanced view of both parties, but we can’t do that without the facts.”
Dwight McKissic, a prominent black Southern Baptist minister, describes himself as a political independent who didn’t support Obama in 2008 because of his position on social issues. McKissic said Obama’s support for same-sex marriage “betrayed the Bible and the black church.” Around the same time, McKissic was researching Mormonism for a sermon and decided to propose a resolution to the annual Southern Baptist Convention that would have condemned Mormon “racist teachings.”
McKissic’s Mormon resolution failed.
On Election Day, McKissic said, “I plan to go fishing.”
Associated Press writer Bill Barrow contributed to this report.
Religion, Pages 12 on 09/22/2012