Scary Mormons and Even Scarier Non-Mormons

So I'm reading this Des Moines Register article about conservative Christians meeting with Mitt Romney (helpfully linked by Oliver Willis), and it slowly dawns on me that the whole country has gone completely fucking sideways...

Many conservative Christians are quietly nervous about Romney's religion and the issue surfaced as Romney opened his campaigning at a forum in Pella, about 40 miles south of Des Moines.

Mary Van Steenis asked Romney how he would ponder important decisions as president and which source of inspiration he would seek.

"Where would the Bible be in that process?" she asked. "Would it be above the Book of Mormon or would it be beneath it?"

I mean...the guy's running for President. It's an important job. But I don't see how asking the candidates for this job to evaluate the world's great religions makes a whole lot of sense.

This is a complete moron's version of a "gotcha" question, because there's no correct way for Romney to answer. We know he's a Mormon, so we know that he thinks The Book of Mormon is right-on and correct. And the woman asking the question thinks otherwise. But if he were to answer that her book is actually the A-#1 absolute primo bestest scriptural type book, like, ever, he'd be basically admitting he doesn't believe in his own religion. Lose-lose.

I mean...seriously...what does this question even mean. Couldn't you use BOTH the New Testament and the Book of Mormon to guide your prayers, if you were into that sort of thing? Does it have to be one or the other. You either dig Joseph Smith and the plate bullshit or St. Paul and the cross bullshit. Pick your side and run with it, Mittster!

Facing an unanswerably fucking stupid question, Romney comes up with his usual heaping load of dogshit, helpfully scraped off the back of his car after driving to the townhall meeting with the family pet strapped to the roof of the car.

"I don't know that there's any conflict at all between the values of great faiths like mine, like yours, like other faiths, like Jews who don't believe in the New Testament," Romney said.

"People of faith have different doctrines and different beliefs on various topics of a theological nature. But in terms of what it is we are going to believe and also based on our values for our country, I think we come from the same place," Romney said.

And that place is...Bugfuck Crazytown, Population: Most of America

The answer did not satisfy Van Steenis.

"I asked if you had to look to one source what would it be? He didn't really respond to that," she told reporters after the event. "This is serious to me."

Yeah, this is serious. This is some serious stupidity. Mrs. Van Steenis, whose name was just DESIGNED to be the first line of a limerick, is just intent on turning a Presidential Election into a Deity Beauty Contest. A person who insists on their President being part of their particular BRANCH of Christianity is deeply, deeply confused about what it means to be American, yet presidential candidates (well, soon-to-be-former Presidential candidates) go and play right to these people, telling them that their erroneous view of the fundamental principles of our society is justified. It's not! It's completely nonsensical!