Republicans delivered this week another crack in their party's stained-glass ceiling, muscling Mormon Mitt Romney one step closer to securing his party's elusive nod. Gone, it seems, are the days of a protestant Republican presidential nominee. But while the three leading contenders for the GOP nod have all found themselves outside the religious mainline, all the analysts agree, somehow: Romney has a Mormon problem.
And though he's been buffeted for years now with the expectation that evangelicals and independents alike could not be reconciled to voting en masse for a Mormon, the theological contours of his bid grew sharper still this week – with a furor over an obscure Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints rite, whereby deceased persons are posthumously baptized. Recently discovered genealogical records indicate that Mormon proxy baptisms were performed on Anne Frank and Simon Wiesenthal. Even Mahatma Gandhi and England's Princess Diana allegedly received the treatment.
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