Salt Lake City – Mitt Romney said Saturday that criticism of his Mormon religion by rival GOP presidential campaigns is happening too frequently.
“Clearly, any derogatory comments about anyone’s faith – those comments are troubling. The fact they keep on coming up is even more troubling,” Romney said during a fundraising trip in the home state of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Meanwhile, Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama told a church convention in Hartford, Conn., Saturday that some conservative evangelical leaders have exploited and politicized religious beliefs in an effort to sow division.
“Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and faith started being used to drive us apart,” Obama told the national meeting of the United Church of Christ.
Many evangelical Christians in crucial primary states such as Iowa and South Carolina consider the Mormon Church a cult.
Romney’s remarks follow an apology from GOP rival John McCain’s campaign for comments about the Mormon Church allegedly made by a volunteer.
Also recently, GOP hopeful Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas apologized for a campaign worker’s e-mail to Iowa GOP leaders about Romney’s religion.
“Faith got hijacked, partly because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, all too eager to exploit what divides us,” Obama told his audience.
