As an aside, the Mormon Church was hostile toward black people everywhere. For example, while all Mormon (white) men are considered priests, black men were barred from the priesthood (women get to be members of the ladies sewing circle and obey their priest. Since blacks could not be priests, they were barred from celestial marriages in the Temple and thus barred from salvation.
In 1978, Mormon leaders suddenly had a revelation from god telling them to allow blacks access to the priesthood and all the rites of the Mormon Church. Prejudice lingers however:
Quote:
LDS historian Wayne J. Embry interviewed several black LDS church members in 1987 and reported "All of the interviewees reported incidents of aloofness on the part of white members, a reluctance or a refusal to shake hands with them or sit by them, and racist comments made to them." Embry further reported that one black church member "was amazingly persistent in attending Mormon services for three years when, by her report, no one would speak to her." Embry reports that "she [the same black church member] had to write directly to the president of the LDS Church to find out how to be baptized" because none of her fellow church members would tell her.
Black LDS church member Darron Smith wrote in 2003: "Even though the priesthood ban was repealed in 1978, the discourse that constructs what blackness means is still very much intact today. Under the direction of President Spencer W. Kimball, the First Presidency and the Twelve removed the policy that denied black people the priesthood but did very little to disrupt the multiple discourses that had fostered the policy in the first place. Hence there are Church members today who continue to summon and teach at every level of Church education the racial discourse that black people are descendants of Cain, that they merited lesser earthly privilege because they were "fence-sitters" in the War in Heaven, and that, science and climatic factors aside, there is a link between skin color and righteousness"
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As an active Mormon, I'm sure Romney had no compunction about telling the NAACP that he would roll back the new health care law. Those folks should know their place, right?