In Louisiana, the DemocRAT Party is running anti-Catholic commercials against Congressman Bobby Jindal in the Governor race this year.

To try to tie Romney to an atrocity that happened nearly a century before he was born says more about the Washington Press Corps than it does about him.

I watched the trailer. I am not Mormon but feel the entry to the trailer is an insult to any religion. As Mitt Romney stated “There are good and bad in all religions.” It is unfortunate that this happened and I’m sure that the Mormaon’s are not proud of what happened, but it did and I don’t see them trying to hide it.

I also wonder why this subject has come up here at least four times? Is someone attempting to put all Mormon’s of today in a bad light? Sure seems that way.

Were the election tomorrow, I'd vote for Romney.

Though there's still a long way to go.

“Is someone attempting to put all Mormon’s of today in a bad light? Sure seems that way.”

It looks that way to me, too.

not a romney fan at all. still, gotta wonder about the timing.

I think I once said, "entertainment is propaganda in lipstick."

gotta wonder about the timing.

The movie was filmed in Alberta in 2004. Scripting, fund-raising, etc. probably started at least a year or two before that.

It seems unlikely that Romney was considered a major threat to Demos in 2002 or 2003.

Also, if you have this utterly deadly propaganda weapon, why use it in the primaries? Keep it hidden till September of 08, after Mitt's been nominated, then release it to ensure HRC's election.

This has little to do with Romney, so pardon me.

I was in Salt Lake City UT when the movie Witness came out. It was billed as “a Mormon policeman has to protect an Amish boy who...”

And try as I might I could not see the Mormon in the character.

Later I noticed that many movie posters had similar statements.

As for the timing, it makes no sense for this to be a Romney hit since it was started so long ago.

Why did Mitt feel compelled to make a statement about it?

The part that has been under contention is whether or not Brigham Young was involved.

I was in Independence Mo today and the sight of the temple spire sent chills down my spne...it is truly a creepy sight.

I lived in Arizons where the so called ‘Mormon Wars’ were an important part of the history of settlement. There were massacres on both sides, both of Mormons and of Gentiles.

History should not be ignored, but it’s suspicious this movie comes out at the same time a Mormon is running for President. I suppose the movie makers will say the film was planned a long time before Romney became a candidate.

Anderson Cooper on CNN is currently doing a show called:

Polygamy in America, Secrets Revealed

The MSM is falling all over itself to discredit Romney, oh, I mean Mormonism.

I’ve seen more shows on the dangers of Mormonism in the last few months then I’ve seen, well, probably ever.

Yawn.... straight to DVD!

It is the 150th anniversy of the massacre. Are they trying to make the opojnt at ALL religious groups are capable of such atrocities?

I have visited the site.

I have stood there and surveyed the small little valley where it occured. I have seen the rocks and bushes--the massacre didn't happen quickly, folks.

Understand that they survived the night--and, now this was a long time ago, 25 years--I believed the families were pinned down for days before the last ones were shot down like animals.

Only a few (very, very young) children were spared. These were adopted into local Mormon families and had their memories erased.

Remember, folks, these were settler families from Arkansas and Missouri bound for California.

Their crime? Crossing desolate Mormon-occupied territory.

Sauron (Sauron lives in Las Vegas, NV, a day's drive from the site.)

I don’t believe that is an LDS Temple. I think you are thinking of the Reorganized LDS or the Community of Christ’s Temple.

I was wondering what that was about with Bobby Jindal I fell asleep before I saw it on Hannity and Colmes last night. Maybe the the Demorat Party needs to revisit Kennedy’s Presidental Run and the Anti-Catholic bias. And for the love of God Rommeny is to blame of something that happened in the 1800’s like I am to blame for slavery. Why can’t we focuse on topics. Isn’t this a form of discrimination aren’t the dems the ones who say they want to end this stuff. God I am getting a headache. Simple what are they going to do to protect this country.

What is the historical reason given for the massacres?

My wife’s step dad was a Dunlap of the clan killed in the massacre. His grandfather took the northern route and was spared. His brothers went through Utah. I believe some of the Dunlap children were spared. We will watch this but probably at home. If Rommney wins the primary I will support him and vote for him. This historical event will not affect my vote.

Having said that, my choice is FRed Thompson in the primary...

me too!

To try to tie Romney to an atrocity that happened nearly a century before he was born says more about the Washington Press Corps than it does about him.

Well, according to Krakauer's book, UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN, there is surprisingly a linkage.

Romney is a descendent of an LDS general authority named Orson Pratt. Orson's brother, Parley P. Pratt, was an LDS missionary to Arkansas & there abouts in the early to mid 1850s. Parley Pratt had about a dozen wives; and decided to add another one who was separated from her husband.

The husband didn't take too kindly to her traveling out of the region with Pratt, tracked them down, and shot him.

This all happened right before the MMM in 1857. Now there were already rumors in Southern Utah about the possibility of the feds invading the Utah Territory. When the Pratt murder occurred, this was layered upon those rumors of an invasion. Dixie Mormons (MOrmons in Southern Utah) weren't so happy about either of these things...and perhaps some sought revenge upon Arkansas travelers once they heard that most of the wagon train folks slaughtered were from that state.

(But leave it to some folks not to know their history)

I watched the trailer...

Trailer? I haven't even seen it but just try the movie's poster by itself (I still need to learn how to post a photo):

http://www.moviegoods.com/movie_product.asp?master%5Fmovie%5Fid=36365

I'm sorry but the same people that put this out are the same people that completely ignore, downplay, shift blame for the atrocities committed in Cambodia and beyond after US withdrawal. Here's how Screenplay writer Carole Whang Schutter put it:

"Creating likeable characters that take part in unimaginably atrocious acts is a chilling reminder that terrorists can be anyone who chooses to blindly follow fanatical, charismatic leaders.[...] Our fight is not against certain religions [but...] 'powers of darkness' which are prejudice, hate, ignorance, and fear perpetuated by leaders who history will surely judge by their deeds."

Cain was prompted to make September Dawn because, in his opinion, religious extremism is particularly relevant today. The film is controversial, representing the view that Brigham Young had a direct role in the massacre, while the LDS Church maintains that "[t]he weight of historical evidence shows that Brigham Young did not authorize the massacre".

Now here's a rhetorical question: Do you think that someone named Carole Whang Schutter would ever write a screenplay regarding the massacres by...oh...Stalin, Pol Pot, Castro etc. How about the ritual of islamic honor killings? September 11? Yeah right! But give them the fiction of Jenin and they are onboard. They couldn't even retain the actual religious affiliation in that Clancy movie, Sum Of All Fears.

This film may have been in pre-production since the election of 2004 about the time Romney was giving out feelers that he would now run for a second term as governor of MA because of possible presidential ambitions. I do actually believe this is a coincidence but if it is then the fact is the leftwing hollywood honchos had chosen again to make mountains out of a massacre of 120 people in the mid-1800's while making mole hills out of the the millions of massacred victims via communism (with the support of the left's convenient and telling silence) while virtually ignoring the very open-and-proud members of islamic jihad.

This is just Par for the course for the anti-Christian Hollywood crowd with an Eagle for timing.

Whoops - should read: "not run for a second term "

I have visited the site.

Okay-do tell.

I have stood there and surveyed the small little valley where it occured. I have seen the rocks and bushes--the massacre didn't happen quickly, folks.

So seeing the rocks and bushes that exist today proves that the massacre wasn't quick? Maybe your tour guide or guide book says so but to use anecdotal evidence gathered from a visit to a site 125 years after the fact is just poppycock.

Understand that they survived the night--and, now this was a long time ago, 25 years--I believed the families were pinned down for days before the last ones were shot down like animals.

Oh spare me. The melodramatics don't add credibility.

Only a few (very, very young) children were spared. These were adopted into local Mormon families and had their memories erased.

Good job slipping the cult programming dig in.

Remember, folks, these were settler families from Arkansas and Missouri bound for California.

What is there to remember. Would it have been different if they were from..oh...Pennsylvania.

Their crime? Crossing desolate Mormon-occupied territory.

Without minimizing the fact that 125 people WERE brutally murdered, a fact that Mitt Romney admits, the convenient ignoring of the murders of Mormons, let alone the fact that moving West wasn't exactly a trip on an interstate highway where conflicts never arose is the equivalent of a painter only doodling in a small corner of their canvas.

Sauron (Sauron lives in Las Vegas, NV, a day's drive from the site.)

To be honest, the fact that you admit you visited the site 25 years ago means that being only a days drive away is irrelevant. Via airplane followed by a rental car means anybody in the US could visit within a day if they wished.

And not trying to be a smart ass but living in the "City of Sin" that embraces the logo "What Happens Here Stays Here" kind of seems to be the wrong place to mention when preaching the ideal of full disclosure.

e movie was filmed in Alberta in 2004. Scripting, fund-raising, etc. probably started at least a year or two before that.

Oh,OK. So the fact that it's running now is a coincidence. I see.

You're right. Shame on me for suspecting the motives of political operators, especially where it concerns the universally hallowed ground of the media and its influence on men's thoughts. I forgot that noone dares trifle with that.

No shame involved. You’re right to be sucpicious. But when the facts indicate your suspicions are highly unlikely to be valid, you should be able to give them up.

The RLDS church changed its name to Community of Christ in the 1990's. They have given women the priesthood and emphasize poltical correctness and world diversity. The Snail shell temple was done by some famous architect who also designed the Spirit Center in Kansas City. They do a "daily prayer for peace" there. I will stop short of ciritcizing another faith's temple, but it seems the RLDS church has been infected by the unfortunate trend among some other denominations to go wishy washy liberal and try to please everyone.

Here's an interesting tidbit I just found about the architects.

_____________________________

Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum or HOK is a major, international architecture, interiors, engineering, planning and consulting firm established in 1955. The firm is headquartered in St. Louis, MO and the name of the company is derived from the surnames of its three founding partners, George Hellmuth, Gyo Obata and George Kassabaum, all graduates of the School of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis.

By the 1970s the firm was operating internationally and in 1975 the firm was named as architect of the $3.5 billion King Saud University in Saudi Arabia, at the time the single largest project in the world.

HOK is also a leader in sustainable design (commonly referred to as "Green Architecture"). Professionals in the firm authored one of the industry's most respected resources on the topic, "The HOK Guidebook to Sustainable Design,"

>>>I have visited the site.

Speaking as a Mormon It was a horrible crime and atrocity that brings shame on any Mormon and was not justified. However, the MSM focus on bashing Mormons of late is getting a little over the top.

I wonder if you have been to visit the Mass Grave Site in Winter Quarters, Omaha where over 600 Mormons died. Most of them are age 0-5. Most starved to death and froze to death as a result of the forced Winter Exodus. I'm still waiting for the MSM to do a movie on that one.

sound of Crickets.......

I believe there is a group of descendants of the perpetrators and descendants of the victims. I know there have been more than one joint memorials established.

The September artilce of the Ensign has pics of some of these memorials.

LDS Newsroom - The Mountain Meadows Massacre

This September marks the 150th anniversary of a terrible episode in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On September 11, 1857, some 50 to 60 local militiamen in southern Utah, aided by American Indian allies, massacred about 120 emigrants who were traveling by wagon to California. The horrific crime, which spared only 17 children age six and under, occurred in a highland valley called the Mountain Meadows, roughly 35 miles southwest of Cedar City. The victims, most of them from Arkansas, were on their way to California with dreams of a bright future.

For a century and a half the Mountain Meadows Massacre has shocked and distressed those who have learned of it. The tragedy has deeply grieved the victims’ relatives, burdened the perpetrators’ descendants and Church members generally with sorrow and feelings of collective guilt, unleashed criticism on the Church, and raised painful, difficult questions. How could this have happened? How could members of the Church have participated in such a crime?

Two facts make the case even more difficult to fathom. First, nothing that any of the emigrants purportedly did or said, even if all of it were true, came close to justifying their deaths. Second, the large majority of perpetrators led decent, nonviolent lives before and after the massacre.

......

The Mountain Meadows Massacre has continued to cause pain and controversy for 150 years. During the past two decades, descendants and other relatives of the emigrants and the perpetrators have at times worked together to memorialize the victims. These efforts have had the support of President Gordon B. Hinckley, officials of the state of Utah, and other institutions and individuals. Among the products of this cooperation have been the construction of two memorials at the massacre site and the placing of plaques commemorating the Arkansas emigrants. Descendant groups, Church leaders and members, and civic officials continue to work toward reconciliation and will participate in various memorial services this September at the Mountain Meadows.

When someone sprinkles around words and phrases like irrelevant, anecdotal, poppycock, credibility, and what difference would it make, you wouldn't expect something like this:

And not trying to be a smart ass but living in the "City of Sin" that embraces the logo "What Happens Here Stays Here" kind of seems to be the wrong place to mention when preaching the ideal of full disclosure.

This is far more irrelevant than anything that Sauron said.

BTW about your concern: And not trying to be a smart ass.

Too late. You crossed that bridge in your first response: "Okay-do tell."

I have no problem with the movie so long as it is accurate enough. The event happened. The memory of those butchered by misguided former christians should not be forgotten.

True. But the choice to release it at this time is questionable.

No one knows for sure what really happened so the movie is based on nothing except maybe a sick agenda.

LOL!!! I just discovered that the movie is rated “R” and Mormons do not go to R rated movies!! LOL!!!