This story has everything the Bloggernacle could ever want: Romney, the Marriotts and sex! Unfortunately, in my opinion, it’s mostly hot air.

To summarize: some people are saying Romney as a member of the board of the Marriott chain should have done more to prevent the hotels from making money on X-rated movies. Or R-rated movies. Or something.

OK, Economics 101: most public company board members deal with only the biggest issues. Operational issues like what kind of movies are seen in hotel rooms would not be appropriate to even bring up in a board meeting.

If you want to find a Mormon villain in this story, aim your wrath at the Marriotts themselves, who have indeed allowed pornography to be a significant part of Marriott hotel revenue streams. But keep in mind that some of the Marriott hotels have separate ownership and are franchisees.

I’d like to quote some of our modern-day prophets, seers and revelators in anticipation of Independence Day.

But before I do, I spent Sunday with a Canadian who is pretty sick and tired of all of the July 4th stuff she has to put up with in Church. I pointed out to her that I heard just as many comments (if not more) on Brazilian patriotism in Church when I lived in Brazil for four years. It seems patriotism for the country you live in is compatible with the Church. And, by the way, Brazilian patriotism didn’t bother me a bit.

First, M Russell Ballard’s talk “Religion in a Free Society.”

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LDS Living has a nice profile on Glenn Beck and his conversion to the Church. Anybody interested in a long discussion we had at M* regarding talk radio can find that post here.

With his CNN gig and the growth of his talk radio show, Glenn Beck is becoming one of the country’s most famous Mormon media personalities. His conversion story is very similar to mine — we both tried a lot of churches before deciding on the LDS church, we both were baptized in 1999, we both have gotten our lives together after joining the Church. And we even share initials.

Seems to me Glenn is a truly good guy.

Saturday my ward had three convert baptisms: a father and his two sons. I was unable to attend the baptisms—I was cleaning the ward building with my family that morning—but witnessed their confirmations on Sunday.

The spirit that accompanied the confirmations was incredible; tears flowed freely from my eyes and I noted others around me also reached for tissues to dry their teary eyes. The wife and mother of these new converts, a formerly inactive member, also wept as her family received the gift of the Holy Ghost.

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Literary critic/rhetorician/philosopher Kenneth Burke pointed out a large problem with any program of debunking that I believe applies to Anti-Mormons, Mormon Apologetics, and even the kind of debunking that goes on at Sunstone symposia, in the pages of Dialogue (and others), or even on the Bloggernacle.

(Warning: very long post below the fold).

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