(
This is a repost what else I supplemented to the Mittens-conversion report on another message board.)
Selected passages from the wikipedia page on LDS' baptism of the dead:
The LDS Church holds that deceased persons who have not accepted or had the opportunity to accept the gospel of Christ in this life will have the opportunity to accept the gospel in the afterlife. As all must follow Jesus Christ, they must also receive all the ordinances that a living person is expected to receive, including baptism. For this reason, members of the LDS Church are encouraged to research their genealogy.
This research is then used as the basis for Church performing temple ordinances for as many deceased persons as possible. As a part of these efforts, Mormons have performed temple ordinances on behalf of a number of high profile people. Of particular interest are: the Founding Fathers of the U.S., Presidents of the U.S., Pope John Paul II , John Wesley , Irving Berlin, Albert Einstein, Gandhi, Christopher Columbus , Adolf Hitler , and others.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints performs vicarious baptisms for individuals regardless of their race, sex, creed, or morality. It has baptized both victims and perpetrators of the Holocaust , including Anne Frank and Adolf Hitler. Some Jewish Holocaust survivors and some Jewish organizations have strenuously objected to this practice.
The LDS Church has urged members to submit the names of only their own ancestors for ordinances, and to request permission of surviving family members of people who have died within the past 75 years, and has enforced these guidelines to the best of its abilities, erasing hundreds of thousands of improperly submitted names.
In May 2009, it was discovered that President Barack Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, "who died in 1995, was baptized posthumously into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints last year during her son's campaign. ... It is not yet clear whether Obama is troubled by the practice. The White House declined to comment Tuesday [May 5, 2009]." The June 4, 2008 baptism was performed in the Provo Utah Temple, and a week later the ritual of endowment was performed on behalf of Dunham. LDS Church spokesman Scott Trotter confirmed that someone did perform a proxy baptism for Dunham, but said it was "counter to [LDS] Church policy for a church member to submit names for baptism for persons to whom they are not related."
Technically, theologically speaken, the Romneys did nothing wrong. But that said, this news could come off as just too
weird for the mainstream. You know the Evangelicals who don't trust Mittens (or prejudist, your pick)? Yeah they're given another reason to not want to like the guy.
But the mainstream will be reminded (or informed) of the converting of thousands of people across different religions to the LDS, and of course that old PR nightmare over the Holocaust victim post-mortem conversions especially. Reading that wikipedia page, I totally forgot about that one sect who converted Obama's dead mother.
Then there is the last element of that entire story: The fact that allegedly, Mittens' father-in-law was an atheist who stayed an atheist while the rest of his family converted to Mormonism, and allegedly gave no wishes or desires to be baptized into that faith after his passing. There would be a debate about the ethics and supposed morality of such a post-mortem move on somebody who may've not wanted it.
Mittens has another problem perhaps. Not a screw-up of his own making like his Tax mess, or running away from old policies like HCR and abortion. No he would be a victim in this one, and if that smear hits...it's going to be ugly.
