Well, you know, Mitt Romney is a Mormon. They are very strident among themselves, like Donny & Marie, the two more famous Osmonds.

Everything is faith & family, and if you want to be someone of the single lifestyle, you become effectively ostracized. Everybody is expected to marry as per the Lord's will and be fruitful and multiply. I mean, it is EVERYTHING to them! Marriage and kids!

Among regular people, they keep their heads down, I guess you could say, because of a history in the 19th century of out-and-out persecution. They hold with not only the Bible but the Book of Mormon, written by some guy named 'Moroni'; all this was formulated by men of two different minds (and as it turned out, two different schools of thought) named Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, once again, 'way back in the 19th century. They pretty much founded the state of Utah - Salt Lake City is their effective capital. They used to be into polygamy, huge. Originally something about increasing their numbers, I think - survival instinct, doncha know. This accounted for much of the persecution, along with charges of heresy.

I'm not sure what their relevant theology is, except it seems to have something to do with the Native American Indians, who they seem to associate with the 'lost tribes of Israel'. Personally, I find that unlikely, unless the ancient lost Israelites migrated to Outer Mongolia before they walked along the Bering Land Bridge (today's Alieutian Islands) and down into the North American Continent during the last great Ice Age.

Anyway, they seem like nice enough people, I guess, but yeah, they can be weird, a little. I'll never forget the two who dropped by my first place, a duplex apartment I had back in the 1970s. It was a cold, bleak day, snow on the ground, lots of slush everywhere. These two were dressed in business suits, right down to their galoshes! I think I even commented, off-handedly, that they looked chilled to the bone but at least their feet were dry! The leader of the two started to get huffy, and I was just in one of my moods. I was having none of his 'Litnessing'! A couple of clowns...

"Do you have any idea, pal," I asked the leader, "how ridiculous you look on a cold day like this?" What, they wouldn't let them wear a coat? Just a suit coat? I guess they might have been wearing long-handles, hahahaha! They did have gloves. They needed parkas.

The guy got hot with me - they both gave me looks somewhere between contempt and pity, as if beholding a wretched soul who was surely hell-bound. I suppose I should've just accepted his tract and thrown it away later.

"Stay warm now, guys", I guffawed as they worked their way back to my street trough the foot-deep snow covering my gravel driveway, "and try to take it easy, hahaha!"

I suppose it wouldn't have killed me to bid them inside to warm up and offer them some coffee or something, I realize now that on such a cold day I was likely a tad unkind.

I suppose I probably am going to hell...oh, well.