Newt sounds too much like phoot!; Paul sounds too much like fall!; Santorum sounds too much like sanatorium!; Romney sounds too much like...

[Crickets]

...dead-atheist baptizing draft-dodger.


Chickenhawks that baptize dead atheists shouldn't have their finger
anywhere near the "nuke 'em" button.

Drafted war veterans agree.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpeNucNY4oE

http://gawker.com/5879888/
As we mentioned yesterday, Ann Romney's Welsh-born father (who Mitt
mentioned in last night's debate to shore up his pro-immigrant bona
fides) was an engineer, inventor, and resolute atheist who disdained
all organized religion and raised his children accordingly. Davies,
his son Roderick told the Boston Globe in 2007, regarded the faithful
as "weak in the knees." But when Mitt began seeing Davies' daughter
Ann, the Romney family launched a concerted effort to convert not only
Ann but her entire family to Mormonism. And they were wildly
successful: Within a year of meeting Ann, Mitt and his father had
converted all three of Edward Davies' children. Days before she died
in 1993, Ann Romney's mother asked to be converted as well. Edward
Davies was the only member of his clan whose soul the Romneys never
claimed for their church. Until he died.

According to this entry in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints' genealogical database, Davies was baptized as a Mormon at a
"special family meeting" 14 months after his death: "All ordinances
except sealing to spouse performed in Salt Lake Temple on 19 Nov 1993
in special family meeting," the entry says. (When we previously asked
the church whether Davies had been baptized, a spokesperson told us
that the information was available only to his family and church
members. But it's apparently right there on the internet for those who
know what to look for.)

According to our tipster, the "ordinances" performed on Davies'
spectral remnants included the following:

[A] canonical series of rituals that Mormons undergo (in life or
death) in order to qualify for admission to heaven, including baptism,
confirmation, "washings and anointings," endowment, and, in the case
of men, ordination to two levels of priesthood. The description seems
to indicate that certain family members were present for all these
rituals, in which a living male would have stood in "for and in behalf
of" the late Mr. Davies.

A little under a year after the posthumous baptism, according to this
entry at Ancestry.com, a Utah-based genealogical registry linked to
the Mormon church, Edward Davies was "sealed" to his spouse for
eternity in a ceremony that appears to have been performed in Atlanta,
Ga.

Of course this is all empty superstition, as Davies realized. Being
dead, he wasn't particularly in a place to care about whatever voodoo
was performed in his name. But it's an exceedingly odd way for the
Romney family to honor the memory of a man who was committed, for his
entire life, to the notion that organized religion is a fraud.

The Mormon church has repeatedly been criticized for its practice of
trawling for dead souls to convert to the faith. Catholic and Jewish
organizations have expressed outrage when the names of dead popes and
Holocaust victims have turned up on Mormon lists of the baptized. In
1995, the church pledged to "discontinue any future baptisms of
deceased Jews" except for direct descendents of living Mormons,
tacitly acknowledging that its creepy and weird to claim the souls of
people who had no interest in Mormonism for their own. It's strange
that the Romney and Davies families didn't accord Edward Davies'
memory the same respect.

UPDATE: Edward Davies' son Jim has written Gawker Media owner Nick
Denton to say that his father was not an atheist. According to Jim,
his father "had faith in God, or a higher power, or something much
bigger than himself, but saw organized religion as something man-
made." My claim that he was an atheist was based on the following:

Earlier this month, the Telegraph reported that "Mr. Davies, who also
served as mayor of the wealthy Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills,
rebelled against his strict upbringing as a Welsh Congregationalist
and became strongly opposed to all organized religion. 'He would say:
'I'm a scientist, show me the proof',' recalled [a former colleague]."
In 2007, the Boston Globe quoted Edward's son Roderick saying that
"Dad considered people who were religious to be weak in the knees.''
The Globe further reported that Edward had "absolutely no use for
religion," regarded it as "drudgery and hogwash," and "insisted [that
his wife] give up organized religion" before marrying her.
Jim Davies also says that, contrary to the reporting of the Telegraph,
his father worked on the Apollo, not Gemini, space program.

For the record, I spent a great deal of time several years ago trying
to get Romney or a representative to answer questions about Edward
Davies and his posthumous baptism. Romney never responded, and the
Mormon Church declined to answer my questions.