I am surprised at how out of hand the Romney-church thing has become
 

I blame this largely on people at BYU and lower levels of the church not thinking about what they are doing.

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,650201262,00.html

The fact that two different business school deans would send a message from their school account in their capacity as dean soliciting support for Romney's campaign is symptomatic of just how closely many Mormons view their connections to the church and to the Republican party. Many act as if the party is the political arm of the church. I GUARANTEE you they would not have ever approved of a similar message for a democratic candidate.

If you represent the church or BYU, you MUST NOT BE INVOLVED in politics in your official capacity (and should be quite limited in your personal capacity).

However these individuals also must be permitted to be politically active. I understand there is a fine line to be drawn and in this instance they were not careful enough –however it is unreasonable for any one person to expect Mit Romney not to attempt to access any and all levels of support at his disposal. If that is the case then no politician may approach a school or his own alma mateur for political support –such an idea is absurd. I do believe the media is being disingenuous in this instance.

The very notion that I, as an average Mormon male cannot think for myself in regards to matters of politics or society is actually exceptionally demeaning and woefully pious on the part of The Boston Globe or any other paper.

Perhaps the Globe has been reading CougarBoard.

personally I would be pissed if the machinery of BYU was used in an officially sanctioned way to support political candidates. That is not their mission. They should be doing education.

If they want to have Mitt come by and speak and handout his website address on flyers, etc. That's fine. But emails from the president to the student body and alumni urging them to vote for Romney? That crosses the line.

Arthur

Yeah but the machinery of Harvard is used by liberal candidates, and especially the liberal professors go out of their way to support them. So professors with a more conservative agenda are supposed to remain quiet?

Official capacity should be neutral but the expectation that only liberal, radicals are allowed political activity is offensive.

Is that what happened? I don't think so; in fact I'm pretty certain that is not what happened exactly. However, it would be awfully easy for a reporter to make just such a connection without actual evidence to support the supposition.

And therein lies the dilemma ... school administrators should've been wise enough to avoid being susceptible to the insinuation in the first place.

I would love to have more details on this BYU-dean email situation. Was it an alumni directory that they sent out a mass email soliciting support for Romney? If so, why didn't I get one? I'm an alumnus. Of course, maybe they just chose the high roller, big money type and not the $5 to Lighting the Way kind of guys.

I guess I'm not as outraged at this as others may be. Maybe they were sending to some emails to some buddies while eating lunch in their office. Why would anyone think that simply because the emails were sent from campus on a .edu account that it would imply a church or institutional endorsement of a candidate? Thats just plain silly.

one of the bigwigs where I work sent me an invitation in the mail to a congressional fundraiser.

Note: he did not do so at work. He did not use his school email.

Another example: the school used to have a fundraiser for the United Way. Now they do not have a fundraiser for a specific charity, but rather have sort of created their own charity. It was deemed inappropriate for a state instituion to basically be sponsoring a private non-profit charity.

I don't care what BYU professors do on their own time. I don't care if they send emails to their buddies. But they certainly shouldn't be doing mass mailings using their official title in their official capacity.

lol...blaming it on BYU people and the church. That's classically funny. Even for you Hoya.

Just once try and show you're above petty mud slinging.

The liberal Boston Globe of course had nothing whatsoever to do with it, by deliberately telling half truths and stoking this fire.

What I'm amazed at is how many people get suckered by this kind of sensationalistic journalism.

Romney consulted with Church leaders. So what? Whoopdefreaking do.

Amen and amen. When at Marist, in a political discussion that was not related to the class (Psycology 101) I mentioned that I had voted (by absentee ballot) for Reagan in the '84 election, I was immediately bombarded with ridicule, scorn and insults from other students and the instructor. It got to the point that a week later after enduring snide comments every day from the instructor that I finally dropped the class and filed a complaint with the department head which he deemed not that big a deal.

Now, I agree that those at BYU who did this shouldn't use their position at a university to do so. However, the Globe is a liberal newspaper that is using it's position in the world of journalism to bitch about a Republican's religious affiliation which violates their nonexistent neutrality ethic, which, IMO, is no better than the weenies at BYU.