Seminary Journal 2008 (August) - Virginia Theological Seminary

the Mormons?
A: In 1960, polls said that 21%
of the American people would not
vote for a Catholic. John Kennedy
addressed it, of course, saying, “I am
not a Catholic candidate for president.
I am the Democratic Party’s candidate
for president who also happens to be
Catholic.” He said, “I do not speak for
my church on public matters, and the
church does not speak for me.” He
won by one of the narrowest margins
in history. This year our poll shows
that 29% of those polled by ABC last
week said they would be less likely
to vote for a Mormon. And among
those, about 60% said they would
absolutely not vote for a Mormon.
I don’t know to what extent Kennedy’s
addressing of the issue of Catholicism
changed things. I don’t know whether
people answering the polls give the
answer that they deeply feel or that
they feel the pollster wants to hear.
But I just fi nd it diffi cult to believe in
this day and time that religion [would
have that much impact], whether it’s
a Jewish vice president as we had the
last time or a Mormon, if he were to
get the nomination this time. Even
18% to me sounds like a very, very
large number. Mitt Romney points out
that he was elected governor of a state
that’s predominantly Catholic. And
so he doesn’t think that the Mormon
label held him back. I’d have to go
back and read the history books on
1960 to see what may have turned the
election. (I was a little girl in Chicago
then and I remember riding in a taxi
with my grandmother, who told me
that when her sisters in Chicago on the
North Side went to vote that morning,
all of them pulled the Republican lever
and it didn’t work. But that was Cook
County; what can I tell you?)
Q: I am married to a member of
the House who has been in Congress
VIRGINIA SEMINARY JOURNAL AUGUST 2007
Ann Compton talks with her old friend the Rev. Will Billow, VTS ‘79.
for 20 years. There always has been a
tension between the press and people
in public service, as there should be.
What is your advice, when people are
misquoted or their comments are taken
out of context? How best can public
offi cials proceed?
A: Excellent question! What does
a public offi cial do to correct the record
when comments are misquoted, taken
out of context, the wrong impression
given—how do you grab back enough
attention to correct the record? It’s almost
impossible. Unless you can get a
really great skit on The Daily Show or
Saturday Night Live and get it on every
column A, it is almost impossible.
Remember Labor Secretary Raymond
Donovan, who was under investigation?
That was a real Federal investigation—it
wasn’t the press. He said after
he was acquitted, “Now, where do
I go to get my good name back?”
The fact is, in our society, in
our culture, where we have a fl ood
of information, people read maybe
broader than deeper on issues. What
presidents do is, they continue to
repeat their line day after day, speech
after speech, hoping eventually
enough audiences hear it that it gets
through—and becomes better known.
But what does an individual
do? Al Gore faced such a problem
recently—someone did a story about
his new house in Nashville, saying it
consumes 20 times the energy of the
average American home, that he’s not
as green as he says he is. I don’t know
who sampled his home. I don’t know
who did the math. But the fact is, now
his staff is saying, “Well, we know the
house has problems, so he’s putting
solar panels on the roof. He’s trying to
deal with it.”
That’s the kind of thing, and
even if it were 100% wrong, it’s almost
impossible to turn around. Is it the
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