Anti-Mormon Bigotry at God's Politics Site?

On Monday we laid out our guide, Fighting Intolerance with More Intolerance? A Guide to Avoiding It. Before the week is even over, there is yet another instance of religious intolerance--on the God's Politics website, no less. I really thought our guide would be of more use to secular liberal bloggers and right-wing blogs than to progressive faith bloggers--most of whom are wise to the demands of ecumenicalist conversation. But I was wrong.

In this post, Tony Jones, National Coordinator for Emergent Village makes fun of Mormon prayer garments. He writes: OK, I'll be honest. I'm ambivalent about Mormonism, and, be it Mitt Romney or any other Mormon, I'm ambivalent about the idea of voting for a Mormon. And I'll bet that a lot of Christians, if they're honest too, agree with me.

My ambivalence stems, I suppose, from my ignorance. I'm skeptical of a religion that admonishes its adherents to wear sacred undergarments (Andrew Sullivan caused quite a dust-up when he blogged about this last December), that didn't allow non-whites to be clergy until 1978, and that follows the teachings of Joseph Smith, whose scriptures I find highly dubious.

The latter two reasons for skepticism are policy differences, and acceptable according to our guide. But as we wrote: ...It is never acceptable to ridicule the customs, practices, or fundamental ideas of the sacred of a particular religious, atheist or ethnic group. (ie. Joking up Mormon prayer clothes--as several blogs did; spreading blood on Muslim men; Marcotte ridiculing the Holy Spirit, etc);

Neither Tony Jones, nor his fellow God's Politics blogger Diana Butler Bass (who also gets a good laugh in about Mormon Temple wear in the comments to the same post) would be likely to make fun of Jewish skull caps, nor Muslim women covering their heads. It is no more acceptable, and no less bigoted, to make fun of Mormon Temple garments. Tony owes us an explanation of why such ridicule is warranted.

Rabbi Heschel said an attack on one religion is an attack on all. I stand with the Mormons and against (even Emergent) bigots. There is enough hate and intolerance on the web! I call on Mr. Jones and Ms. Butler Bass to please apologize for your insensitive and unkind remarks.