Compassionate Mitt Romney Told Unmarried Woman She'd Go to Hell if She Kept Her Baby:

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BY ERIN GLORIA RYANJAN 11, 2012 4:40 PM

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Compassionate Mitt Romney Told Unmarried Woman She’d Go to Hell if She Kept Her Baby

In an allegation that should surprise no one, a new book claims that Republican Presidential frontrunner and all-around puzzling dude Mitt Romney once told a woman that she'd be barred from heaven forever unless she gave her baby up for adoption.

Buzzfeed reports that the forthcoming book entitled The Real Romney says the incident happened when Romney was serving as a Mormon bishop. Peggie Hayes, 23-year-old divorced woman, found herself pregnant with her second child while she was a parishoner under Romney's counsel in Massachusetts. One day, Romney came over to her house to offer her some religious counseling, and encouraged her to give up her child to the Church's adoption agency after it was born, since the Mormon faith dictates that giving a baby up for adoption is preferable to single parenting. When Hayes balked at Romney's suggestion, Mittens told her that unless she followed Church teachings, she could be excommunicated.

Romney clarified that Hayes' excommunication would make her unable to enter Heaven, so, in short, Mitt Romney told a pregnant lady that unless she did what he said with her baby, she might end up going to hell.

Romney, of course, has denied that the incident occurred. Even if it had, he didn't have the power to excommunicate the woman; that power lies with a council of church officials. And keeping one's child to raise in a single parent environment isn't considered a grave sin worthy of excommunication, either.

Jesus Christ of Latter Day Jerks, you guys. Between the denying of the gay pride, the lifesaving abortion interference, and now this hellthreat, Romney's confusing and conflicting antics are getting ridiculous. His views are so wildly inconsistent that I'm beginning to think that Mitt Romney is actually two conflicted souls trapped in the same body, like Gollum from Lord of the Rings. One day, he's all about supporting abortion rights, but the next it's "NO! Abortions is killing the Precious!" He's on camera declaring that he's a nice, reasonable, progressive dude until PRECIOUS IS THE ARCH CONSERVATIVE. He's serving the poor in poverty-stricken neighborhoods in Boston until THE POORSES ARE STEALING FROM THE PRECIOUS! WE FIRE THE POORSES!

As a non-Republican, the frontrunner status of such a clearly flawed candidate should make me happy, but, on a personal level, I hope Romney can figure it out before someone ends up getting their finger bitten off.

Bishop Romney pressured single mother to give up baby, book says [BuzzFeed]

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Hey, don't forget that there are LDS zealots who are "converting" millions of victims of the Holocaust to Mormonism, without the permission of the families or anyone for that matter. Truly heinous.

What????

How does one go about converting the dead? Do they have LDS psychics or something?

The LDS church routinely baptizes the deceased to ensure Mittens and Co. have plenty of slaves souls to work the planets Xenu left them.

[en.wikipedia.org]

A big part of Mormon belief involves "forever families", and how if you are a family on earth you will be a family in heaven. LDS has been doing proxy baptisms for the dead for years, that's one of the reasons they are so heavily into genealogy--so they can look up their own ancestors and baptize them into the LDS faith so they are together in heaven. The way I understand it, people actually stand in for the dead during the baptism ceremonies, and lists of names are read of the people who are being baptized. A few years ago someone discovered that they were baptizing people who had died in the Nazi death camps -- Jews who had been martyred for their faith, basically, were being converted to LDS through proxy baptism. The LDS had not asked the families or anyone else if it was okay, they just got the names from their genealogy research and charged ahead with the project. I think the Simon Wiesenthal center got involved, and the church hierarchy was asked stop the practice, which the "Prophet" at the time said they would do. They got caught doing it again awhile later. As far as I know they've stopped now, but maybe they are just doing it in the basement.

Wow! Thanks for the breakdown. It still seems to me weird to be "able" to convert someone without their consent, but that never stopped religions before I guess.

Ooooh, ooooh! Where can I rent some slave souls? My laundry room is filthy!

I don't know, exactly; I remember there was a big scandal because they tried to do it to Obama's mother and he was kind of like "Um, no offense, but my mom? Not Mormon in life, please don't make her so after death." I honestly don't understand the mentality behind it, as I'm rather firmly of the belief that if someone doesn't make that choice for themselves then you DEFINITELY can't "save their soul" or whatever by making it for them after death. Baptism is a personal spiritual choice, not one that can (or should) be made be committee. (This is also why I have a problem with infant baptisms.)

promoted by Lipfat

Well the idea is that after the baptism the person can still say yes or no for themselves in heaven. Not everyone is convertable - Mormons just see it as opening the door and the person's soul makes the decision from there.

promoted by Lipfat

Thanks! That helps it make a bit more sense I suppose.

Former Mormon here, just adding that you have it correct in the main, but the belief is that those who are baptized have the free agency to reject it. So, the thought is not that they are forcibly converting someone, rather they are offering them the opportunity to convert if they wish it. That's the theory anyway.

ETA I never heard the 'slave' soul theory. Just that a soul cannot progress to the highest levels of heaven without baptism. But, I also slept through a lot of church classes.

Edited by LadyvonSnarkyPants at 01/11/12 7:11 PM

promoted by NoFrank

I love this comment. The church got so much shit for this, and every member I know doesn't understand why. Now they claim that they have to get permission from at least one family member to baptize for the dead, but you know, you can be however far removed as you like. It's utter bullshit.

Oh, and baptisms for the dead take place in the temple basements, so your comment really is made of win.

This is why Ancestry.com creeps me out (confession: I applied for and interviewed for a shitty entry-level job there, so now they have my info, which also creeps me out). It's Mormon-owned, and they basically know all about you and your entire family going back as far as possible.

Isn't there also a national/international Mormon database of basically everyone in the entire country? Or is that some phony anti-Mormon controversy that someone cooked up when referring to Ancestry.com?

(Former Mormon here.) Well, the whole idea of Baptism for the Dead is that the actual physical act of being baptized is needed by god, and so someone's body has to be used. So you go and get baptized in someone else's name a few dozen times in a row, and then the "work" is done for those people. Their soul gets to accept it or not in the afterlife. If their soul wants to become Mormon in the afterlife, but no baptism is done, that soul is outta luck! So the ultimate goal of it all is to find each and every person who existed on this planet throughout all time and baptize them. And the people who were Mormon in this life and die can go visit the other folks in the afterlife and do missionary work with them so they can choose to accept the baptism or not. Yay! So if you've never met those cute boys in suits and nametags in this life, do not despair- your time will come. So, yeah. A list of names of every person in the country wouldn't be too far off. The names have to be verified with things like birth/death records, gravestone rubbings, census records, etc. It can't just be "guessed" about, which is why the family history work is so stressed by Mormons. We're all technically related somehow if you believe we came from Adam & Eve originally.

Umm this is one of the wildest things I've ever heard.

@confirmed spinster

In any Mormon temple I've been in or was part of a ceremony in, I've never seen a baptismal font used for baptisms for the dead in anything resembling a basement.

I grew up Mormon but don't associate myself with that religion anymore, but there is some unnecessary snark and half-truths being presented here. I've actually participated in a couple 'Baptism for the Dead' ceremonies, so I'm likely more informed than the majority of the commentors here.

The baptisms for the deceased are not to 'convert' deceased persons to Mormonism. According to Mormon beliefs, a person must be baptized in order to enter into the 'higher kingdoms' of heaven. Baptisms for the dead are viewed as an 'opportunity' for an individual not baptized according to Mormon tradition to have the ordinance performed for them, thus allowing them to enter into a 'higher kingdom' of heaven. The deceased individual has the opportunity to accept or reject the baptism.

Former Mormon here, also.
That's my understanding of the practice as well.
Mormons kind of believe in their own form of 'purgatory'. In that, if you are not baptized you get to hang out in this waiting room for heaven, until they call your name. And, there's all kinds of Missionary Angels in white shirts and black ties, reading to you from the Book of Mormon to help you pass the time until one of your relatives figures out that you existed and puts your name on the list for baptisms of the dead.
However, I'm not sure how someone found out who they were baptizing... I think it's an excommunicate-able offense to share what happens in the temple with someone that isn't A) a member and B) Temple worthy.
But, I was a convert... So, I could have this ALL WRONG.

So they try to save Jews by converting them to Christians, thus making them assimilate? That's... really antisemitic, actually.

I always wondered how that was supposed to work in the afterlife. I had this mental image of people lounging around heaven and suddenly an angel in a short-sleeved white shirt and a black tie comes up with a clipboard and says "Mr. Smith? Excuse me, but you are being transferred to the Mormon room." And then off they go, with Mr. Smith protesting every step of the way that he wasn't Mormon and the angel reassuring him that he is now.

My partner is an archivist, and one of their recommendations to geneology researchers is to look into the Mormon resources - whether or not they've ever had any Mormon family members. I wouldn't think they've actually succeeded in doing so, but their goal really is to collect info on EVERYBODY. As a non-religious person, I don't actually find it that creepy just because I see what they do with the info - trying to retroactively convert dead people - as totally pointless and silly. I can see a religious person being upset by it if they think their dead relatives are floating around, conscious, in some sort of afterlife, and that the conversion might affect them in some way. For me, so long as they aren't trying to steal my identity or aggregate my personal data to direct advertising at me (I'm looking at you, google....) I see their crazy geneology fixation as being pretty harmless.

This sounds like Martin Luther and the indulgences style pointless theology to me. And a complete waste of time. If God exists, he probably is not listening to this retroactive crazy business.

Slummin'

Monday, July 30, 2012